The leaves were starting to fall, yellow and brown ashes drifting coldly in the silken breeze. The woman, a crimson shawl around her shoulders, brushed them into a neat pile in a corner of the garden. The flowers had withdrawn, and the trees and bushes were naked, looking over the garden like spindly old women. The fountain was idle and the soil was hardening. But the pebble lawn was impeccable still, and the woman kept the paths clear.

 She sat on the bench and gazed into the small, round mere. A couple of leaves were floating on the still water. The woman leaned over and scooped them out, folding them into her lap. She looked back into the shallow pool. Her fingers had rippled the water. Light from elsewhere was ghosting in the tiny waves.

 The woman sighed and circled her fingers across the surface. The water stirred, ripples crossing ripples crossing ripples, circles and lines, undulations of light and energy. And then a new movement, determined and anxious, not an undulation but a step. A man walking quickly, then breaking into a run. He was carrying something. Something red.

 The door was still closing on the courier who had brought the funds in neat little packages from the bank, billions of shillings in notes. Every penny the two of them had in the world. Shares sold, pension schemes cashed in, accounts closed and loans negotiated, all in the space of half an hour. Enough to get them off world, enough to hide away in reasonable comfort for the next decade. Nobody could trace it. Nobody could freeze access to it. Nobody could make it disappear. Hard cash: still the best way to a secure future.

 Together, they slammed the case shut. Then the young man hefted it off his desk and they ran out of the room.

 "Who is behind the attacks on Branson SA? Who sabotaged our facility in ch'Rihan? Who is the insider? Who leads the pro-clones terrorist movement?"

 He said, quietly and sadly, "I don't know".

 "He told you nothing?" said Tuan, angrily.

 "I'm almost convinced he doesn't actually have anything to tell us."

 "Only almost? After what you did?"

 "Nobody is perfect." Tuan thought he saw a nano-smile tug at the left corner of Parris' mouth, but couldn't be sure.

 "These terrorists, these 'rights-for-clones' nuts, they'll kill all of us. Who is the insideer? There can't be many with access to both our Temporal and Genetics departments. Go through the files again."

 "It may be more than one person, of course."

 "No," Tuan shifted uncomfortably. "Well, that could make it impossible to stop them."

 "There is one possible link. Whoever sabotaged the ch'Rihan facility is unlikely to have remained there."

 "You don't know that. These radicals could well be suicidal."

 "However, if anyone recently departed the facility, they are prime subjects for interrogation."

 "Well, I suppose it's better than torturing our entire staff." Tuan reached over to the intercom on his desk. "Karo, join us," he barked into it.

 Karo Suvlov hefted his corpulent frame through the double doors into the conference room, smearing grease from his lips onto a napkin. Parris grimaced, stood and turned away from the fat man, looking out into the storm.

 Tuan had practised siting straighter than any of his employees, studied his movements and perfected his appearance to create as imposing and stoic a front as possible. He found himself fazed by Parris' stone poise, by the studied skill of the enforcer's movements, his straight back and the economic sweep of his arms and legs.

 Tuan had seen Parris training, seen him fight, overcome his opponents with geometric punches and kicks that hit their target though Parris kept his face turned placidly away. People interpreted Parris' expensive suit, plucked and upturned eyebrows, pencil moustache and supercilious manner as the affectations of a spoilt rich-kid starting to age without maturing. Tuan had speculated that this was some attempt by Parris to make people under-estimate him. But maybe it really was just arrogance.

 Parris walked through the world as if he owned it. And, in a way, he did.

 He was wealthy, and had earned it all, despite his slumland background. More than that, he was ruthless and capable enough to get anything he wanted. And he knew it. He did what he did because he enjoyed it. His allegiances were to the most ruthless paymasters who stepped forward. Tuan had seen the files.

 Parris had been born on Pluto. His father was a fighter and all the family's money came from no-rules cage fights in the low-grav tunnels. The boy had grown up hard, and learnt at a young age both hand-to-hand combat and athletics from his father. He committed his first murder at the age of eight. An old woman had passed some comment about shit on the street, laughed at Parris and walked away. The woman didn't get very far, and died with a switchblade buried in her jugular.

 His parents threw him out a couple of years later, fearing the police attention their son's increasingly destructive activities were bringing to bear. Until he joined the Irregulars aged fourteen, he had been a prostitute, starting on the streets and ending up in a high-class bordello on Venus, where he had learnt all of his personal grooming habits.

 By the time he was eighteen, Parris was a Dalek Killer. But at the height of the second Dalek War, he went AWOL. He joined Branson SA's current parent company, Agsohi-Cantara-Siemens. The company kept quiet during the Dalek wars, principally because it did incredibly well out of the devastated planets, refugee populations and scrap spaceships it managed to get its hands on. There were also rumours of ACS cutting deals with the Daleks, though nobody knew what the deals were for.

 Parris was trained in countless arts of combat, interrogation and espionage. He became a trouble-shooter, investigator and enforcer: An industrial spy and an underworld hard man. He'd gone to work on the male prisoner with his bare hands, a pair of wires and a pocketknife. Had the prisoner known anything, he would have told. Parris was a real performer.

 Tuan was suddenly aware or Suvlov's eyes, expectantly on him.

 "Karo, are you aware of any senior staff who were recently in our ch'Rihan facility but left before the attack?"

 "Only Teibi, sir."

 Tuan's jaw dropped slightly. "Teibi? Was in ch'Rihan?"

 "Yes."

 "And you didn't think to mention this?"

 "I..." Tuan could see the faint light of dawn behind Suvlov's eyes. "I didn't connect the events, sir. Might our scapegoat may actually be our mole?" Suvlov giggled.

 "Where is he?" Tuan sighed.

 "Dead," Suvlov giggled again, then pouted at the grey man's expression.

 "No he isn't," said Gemmel, the dark man, rushing into the room. "That hulking Ogron assassin failed to stop him. One of our automatic security routines has detected movement in his expense account. We have checked his private accounts, and they have all been cleared out. He's alive, and he's trying to run."

 "Karo, take some security staff and bring him back. I don't care about collateral damage. Mr. Parris, begin investigations and please prepare an interrogation."

 Parris smiled out at the boiling dark clouds, then turned on his heel and swept out of the room.

 Underground car parks: a universal constant these days. Or shuttle parks, flitter parks, hoverer parks, and so on. But always underground. The ladies had parked opposite the front entrance to the Branson SA building, and then snuck round the side and down a slope to the car park exit.

 With the car out of sight, Doyle broke from the wall and ran beneath the solid metal grating as it slid back down. Benny followed, sliding under the gate on her knees and rolling out just as it closed. On the other side they ran from shadow to shadow to the far side, stopping beside the elevator entrance. Once across, Doyle removed a pen from her hip pocket. She turned it over, pointed it at a section of roof above, and clicked the end. A dart shot silently from the end, embedding itself in the plasticrete near a ventilation duct. A thin wire dangled from it, the other end attached to the pen. Benny stood and watched Doyle, their hair and their black fatigues dripping in the underground dark, soaked from the drizzle outside and the dull humidity.

 Doyle held the pen just above the ground, clicked it again and three darts shot from the other end, anchoring the line to the ground. She straddled the wire, then swung around and crouched slightly so that her crotch was pointing at Benny.

 She said, "do what I do". Benny watched as Doyle twisted the solid round buckle of her belt. It split apart, flashing a red beam over the wire. Then it grabbed the wire, clamped itself shut. Doyle was yanked to the ceiling. Benny watched her, and then assessed the distance between floor and roof as a mere ten feet.

 Above, Doyle set about unscrewing the panels of the duct. Benny put the wire between her legs and played with her buckle. Both women were surprised when she shot up the wire and nearly broke her neck on the roof. Doyle shushed her, angrily.

 Doyle opened the duct and climbed through, Benny clambering after her. Together, finding holds on the corners of metal panes, they slid up a short shaft, stopping at a grill above the lobby of the Branson SA building. The shaft narrowed above them, too thin for either to squeeze up.

 There were four security guards on duty, all men - two behind a desk, and two in front of the main doors.

 "Now, brace yourself." Doyle showed no trace of humour as she took another pen device from her hip. She twisted the end.

 An orange flash filled the lobby, and a loud explosion followed it.

 "Cruk," shouted one of the guards.

 "What was it?" said one behind the desk.

 "A car." The two by the doors ran outside, guns drawn.

 "Go with them," said the senior man behind the desk. His partner dithered for a moment, then ran outside.

 "Come on," Doyle said as she pushed the grille open. It was hinged, and a locking screw had already been removed.

 Doyle dropped down to the floor, and Benny followed her. They jogged across to the desk, Doyle exchanging smiles with the man behind it as he tossed her a plastic card, and then into a waiting elevator. Doyle slid the card into a slot and pushed the button for the fiftieth floor.

 Caramel sat a moment, shivering at the sight of him. Then she slid off the bed and knelt beside him, resting his head in her lap. He moaned quietly when she touched him. He was barely breathing.

 "David," she said. "David, please. I need you. You have to stay with me. You have to be OK."

 His face was bruised, one eye horribly swollen. His teeth were chipped, a few missing, his lips split and ragged. They'd shaved his head.

 "They'll let us go. We just have to hang on."

 His surgeon's fingers were broken and there were defensive wounds on his forearms and shoulders. His right ankle was angled wrongly. His genitals were raw and looked scorched, small depressions indicating electrodes had been clamped to his testis. There were some signs of bleeding from his anus. His nipple ring had been torn out, and patches of skin had been deftly scoured from his chest and abdomen.

 They negotiated their way through the labyrinth of cubicles, copiers and coffee machines. Benny noted that there were no personal touches in the cubicles. Even the layout of items on each desk was repeated on the next. Each work area was the same as the last and the next.

 "So, this is where they make people?"

 "No," said Doyle. She pointed at a bright area of light, shining down a corridor across the other side of the office. "There are some labs down there. *That's* where they make people."

 "How did you get mixed up in all of this? If Li Duc is a clone, how did you meet him?"

 "I knew the original. I worked for Branson back then, I was his bodyguard. We fell in love."

 "And then they killed him?"

 "Yes. And then, they cloned him. I left the company immediately. They slapped me with a warrant to keep me silent. They've been keeping tabs on me ever since, though I've learned how to avoid them. I've been trying to save Li since the first time. Again and again I've seen them kill him and bring him back. I've had enough. I have to stop them this time, no matter what the cost."

 They had been in the queue for an eternity, and driving to the station had taken twice as long.

 "Not long now," he said.

 A moment later, the doors on either side of his sportster were wrenched open, and he and Mary were dragged out.

 Suvlov waited for them at the roadside, an umbrella in one hand and a pistol in the other. He had brought a dozen thugs with him.

 "'Fraid you don't get out that easy, boy."

 "No, please," said Teibi. "I just want to go. I'm no threat to Branson. Please, let us go."

 "Take the man to the van," continued Suvlov. "I'll take care of the girl."

 "What about these," said one of the heavies, brandishing a couple of suitcases and indicating a heavy red one in the boot. Another driver was leaning on his horn further back in the queue. The traffic had ground to a halt behind Teibi's car.

 "Bring the luggage, it may contain something important."

 Teibi was press-ganged off into the rain, looking fearfully at Mary and pleading for his freedom. His cases followed.

 The woman holding Mary by the shoulders released her at Suvlov's nod. Mary stumbled forward a few steps, glancing between the shrinking Teibi and the bloated Suvlov. The driver behind hooted his horn again.

 "It's Mary, isn't it?" Suvlov cooed. "You used to be my secretary. I don't recall you ever responding to my advances. What, exactly, does young Teibi have that I don't? No, don't answer that. I'm sure it's just a matter of personal taste."

 "Please, just let us go. What can holding us accomplish?"

 The horn blared again.

 "Holding you accomplishes nothing." Suvlov raised his gun and shot Mary in the stomach.

 Teibi screamed as his lover buckled to her knees. The horn was silent.

 Blood pooled from her gut into the rain on the road. She rolled on her back, moaning and breathless, her blonde hair matted across her face.

 "Kill her," Suvlov said to the security woman by the car. "And then shoot that horn-happy driver, will you? Getting on my fucking nerves." He followed Teibi into the rain.

 There didn't seem to be anyone else in the brightly-lit laboratory - just benches and apparatus, abandoned for the night.

 Doyle ignored several glass doors to other labs on either side of the room, heading directly into the one opposite the door they had come through.

 This lab was much larger, and more like a surgical theatre. It has a glass ceiling. There were four flat beds in the centre, three of them home to the still bodies of Wong Mei Foo, Lui Tsing Yi, Sham Shui Po. Wires ran from their arms and chests to various monitors. Three thick tubes attached a large, round computer to metal skullcaps on each of their heads.

 "They're extracting the Adored's personalities and memories," Doyle told Benny over her shoulder. "Then they'll edit them, pick the bits they want the next ones to have. They'll already have copied their DNA."

 "Didn't they have copies of this stuff already?"

 "They did, until my contact deleted them." Doyle pointed through the window at the far end of the lab.

 Benny could see a man in a white coat, sitting behind the venetian blinds of an office on the far side of another laboratory. Benny and Doyle walked past half a dozen misted pods. Benny could see bloody foetuses inside three of them.

 "Would those be the new clone?" she asked.

 Doyle paused, and looked at the pods. "Yes," she said. "I hadn't noticed." She aimed her gun at the first pod and shot the pre-natal figure. Her bullet passed neatly through the top of the pod and through the creature's head. Viscous liquid oozed out of the tattered glass hole in the lid. Doyle had shot the other two before Benny could even move.

 "What did you do that for?" Benny shouted. The man came running out of the office.

 "Will you be quiet?" he stage whispered. "Doyle, what the hell are you doing?"

 "They were just biomass. Lumps of flesh, without souls, without life. Just three more monsters, waiting to be made into people."

 "And you killed my assistant."

 "He would have tried to stop us."

 "This is not our way. We are fighting against this kind of thinking."

 "The clones could not be left alive. For them to live, the three through there would have to die. Don't forget that you irradiated the DNA and memory engrams of the Adored. That was closer to murder than what I just did. But you know that had to be done. I'm sorry about your assistant, but things are too desperate to take risks. He could have destroyed the entire operation, and cost us our lives." She drew breath, and looked between her two companions. "Benny, this is Doctor Hu."

 "Hu?"

 "He's the head of Branson's genetics department. And our man on the inside."

 "Our?"

 "We're part of a group trying to secure rights for clones. And to end the evils perpetrated by Branson and by the people of this world."

 "Forgive me, but doesn't being head of the team creating the clones create something of a conflict of loyalties?"

 "I have been in this business for twenty-five years. All of this is my fault. Everything Doyle and so many others have been through is because of me. Years of guilt drove me into the arms of the rights-for-clones lobby, and eventually into Doyle's underground cell. I am trying to heal the wounds I caused. To make up for my misdeeds."

 "I see," said Benny, raising an eyebrow.

 "My security pass," he handed a card to Doyle. "That will get you to the uppermost levels. I'll free the clones. Be careful as you go. From here on up, they monitor the close-circuit cameras all the time."

 "I got you into this," she said. "I'm so sorry. I've. I've done terrible things. All those years I watched you, and then running into you with Li Duc, it seemed like fate. I... I knew who he was. I don't know how to explain. I love him. I really love him. But being so near him was too much. You're the same, you know. I've watched you both. I fell in love with you, standing on that street corner. Just as I fell in love with him singing on stage.

 "But I do love you. I... I think I used you. I wanted to be close to him. But I couldn't face it. It was easier to be close to you. I've wanted that before, too. To hold your hand and follow you, away from Dal Window's. You were always much realer than he was. I think I love you the most."

 "He had this with him," said Karo, thossing the red suitcase onto the table.

 Tuan felt the weight of the case.

 "Well, judging by how heavy this is I hardly think I need to ask what's in it. Suddenly lost your confidence in our glorious banking system, Teibi?"

 "Not exactly."

 "And why were you planning this hasty departure, my boy?"

 "Well, let's see if I can remember. Oh yes, I have it now. You tried to kill me!"

 "Oh, that. Well, you'll have to forgive me. I have this thing about traitorous mass-murderers, you know."

 "If you mean what I think you mean, I had nothing to do with the incident in ch'Rihan."

 "Really? And I suppose you aren't part of the pro-clones lobby?"

 "I am a part of it, and proud to be. But we don't kill people to get our point across."

 "You're still a traitor, a turncoat."

 "Is it so wrong to have morals?"

 "Don't be so childish."

 The intercom buzzed and Gemmel picked up the handset. He listened to the voice at the other end, and then his jaw dropped. His cigarette bounced on the tabletop.

 "We have intruders," he told Tuan, meekly.

 "What?" boomed Tuan. "Where?"

 Gemmel repeated the query into the intercom, then relayed the answer:

 "Level one-two-two."

 "The Tech Support and Integration storage area. Why would they be there?"

 "Oh, oh, I think I know," said Suvlov. "That's where the temporary Temporal department has been set up. The time-acceleration chamber has been constructed in there."

 "They have been with the Adored, too," relayed Gemmel, gripping the intercom handset.

 "This could mean Hu is compromised. Parris, go and get them. And bring Hu here."

 Doyle had shot a security guard guarding the only corridor on this level as soon as she and Benny had stepped from the lift. Benny was trying not to look at the body.

 Doyle appeared at the end of the corridor, jogging towards Benny with a determined look.

 "I've disabled their time-accelerator," she explained. "They were going to use it to mature the clones in minutes. Sick."

 "What now," said Benny.

 "Now we find Li and release him. There are cells on floor one-fifty." Doyle pressed the button to call the lift.

 Far above, at the very top of the building, Suvlov had used the security override to call the lift that accessed the relevant side of the building. Parris was standing inside, shaking his head.

 "I do not need backup, Mr. Suvlov. I'm perfectly capable of handling this myself." He produced a plasma pistol from inside his jacket, smoothing his suit back into line with his free hand. Then he punched the button for floor one-two-two.

 The doors slid shut and the lift dropped rapidly, gravity equalisers inside preventing Parris from floating or losing his supper. The lift took thirty seconds to reach the desired floor. Parris smiled as the lift pinged. He stepped towards the doors.

 Outside, Doyle took one last look back towards the temporal laboratories, and nodded to Benny as the lift pinged. They stepped towards the doors. The doors opened, and Parris walked swiftly out of the lift, his gun raised. He had fixed a sneer on his face, preparing to face the rabble scum who had caused so much chaos.

 The doors opened, and Benny and Doyle entered the lift. Doyle pulled Hu's pass from her jacket and ran it through the slot. Benny leaned against the mirror at the back, and closed her eyes.

 "Once we have Li, we'll go straight to the top," said Doyle, pushing the button marked '150'.

 "I can't wait," said Benny as the doors closed.

 "It's a little hard to explain, sir," said Karo as he entered the conference room. "I have been monitoring the CC myself. He... he..."

 "Spit it out," said Gemmel. "He disappeared."

 Snow crunched under his feet, and there were trees and foliage, hard with ice. He shivered.

 The Garden was deserted, and having assured himself of this Parris pocketed his pistol. His immediate thought was to return the way he had come, but the gate through which he must have passed was padlocked from the other side.

 The sky was as grey as the flagstones, and the air just as sharp as the dormant branches on the trees.

 There was a small pond in the centre, the surface solid.

 And on the tree beyond, in the far corner, alone and battling the pale cold around it, was a bright red apple. The solitary fruit shone to Parris across the garden. He walked purposefully to the tree, crunching on the stones, and then stood on the tips of his toes and tugged the apple from its branch.

 Returning to the fountain, he looked at the apple, turned it around in his gloved hands. It was the most perfect apple... the most perfect thing he had ever seen. It shone with warmth, vibrant and unblemished. The stalk was curved to the nth degree of perfection. It was sublime, transcendental, the most beautiful shade of red. He held it up to his mouth and took a bite. Looking at the gate thoughtfully, and judging its power to withstand the full weight of his kick, he began to count to thirty-four in his head. Just beginning his seventh chew, Parris' jaw froze. Immaculately calm, he angled forward and spat the mouthful onto the frosty paving stones. He looked at the flawless apple in his hands.

 He was too distracted to see the haggard old woman with the hook nose and grey hair appear impossibly, swamped in a black cloak, from behind the tree that had born fruit to his apple. Nor did he see her take a basket, hidden under a gooseberry bush beneath the wall, and coo at the sleeping baby inside.

 She had resigned herself to dying soon after he did. She knew they would never get out. Nobody was coming for them, she didn't know where Li was, and if David survived his injuries they would kill them both anyway. After seeing the length Branson had gone to, the things they did to real people, she would not be allowed to live. Her life, if it could be called that she thought, was over.

 Then the door opened, and Ng Li Duc ran in. In her relief, in her joy, Caramel leapt from the bunk and threw her arms around him. Then she realised who he was, and how she felt about him, and that he was dressed only in his underwear, and she stepped back.

 Then she smiled and hugged him again. His wounds were completely healed, she noticed.

 Then she noticed the two women behind him. She recognised one as the woman who had saved Li Duc at the concert, a couple of nights before and a world of fear away. The woman smiled strangely. Seeing David on the bunk, she shot to his side and began examining his wounds.

 The frowning woman was a stranger.

 "He's alive and relatively stable, but he needs a doctor," said Benny.

 "I am a doctor," the man laughed weakly. "Are you here to rescue us?"

 "Yes. Sort of."

 "We should check the rest of the cells," said Doyle.

 "Of course," Benny stood. "We'll be back in a moment. She and Doyle walked out of the cell, leaving Li Duc and Caramel to tend to David. They helped him to sit up, then settled down for a moment. Li Duc looked at Caramel's face, then rounded on her and started to smear away the tears with his thumbs.

 "It's OK now. We're going to be fine. I have to explain something," he said after a few moments, shifting back to crouch on the floor next to Caramel. "I'm a clone."

 Caramel frowned at him, then looked down. "I know," she said. "It's an open secret. What they do to you. to the other yous, it's terrible. But everybody knows. Nobody talks about it, but they all know. We all know," she added, sadly. "Everybody knows except the clones."

 Li was quite for a while. Then he said, "Doyle didn't tell me that."

 The three of them sat in silence, until David bent forward slightly and spat some blood onto the floor. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth, then reached in and pulled out a tooth. Then he spoke.

 "You know," he said. "When Hanari was at its height they said that on this world it was always next week. Always a new craze, a new fashion, the latest thing. Some said it was terrible, that our popular culture was too disposable and infantile. That nothing here lasted. But next week has been the same for over a decade now. And nobody seems to care. Manufactured boy bands get the piss taken out of them by manufactured punk bands. Rebellion is one of the biggest commodities we've got. The soundtrack to our modern life has become the storyline itself. The lyrics are the shallow limits this society has for thought and feeling. People here speak only in cliché, melodramatic lines from songs and soaps. Life imitates third-rate TV shows and retro, recycled soft-rock anthems. Doesn't that worry you?"

 "No," Caramel said, ignoring the context. "The music's glub, so what's the problem?"

 "'Glub'? You just made that up, didn't you?"

 "What if I did?"

 "What does it mean?"

 "If you don't know, I'm not telling." She frowned, and looked around her. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "You're right. I... I'm not sure what to think anymore."

 David sighed.

 Benny hovered back into the room, Doyle behind her. They hadn't found any more prisoners. None still alive, anyway.

 "Ten years ago, youth culture skipped a beat," David continued wearily. "The underground, hardcore bands started missing out on their idealistic and revolutionary stage, and went straight onto the corporate ladder: All pop culture became a supermarket sweep, it all went. It's happened on all the colonies at one time or another."

 "It happened on Earth at the end of the twentieth century," added Benny. "They even draughted the lead singer of an apparently subversive rock group onto the board of directors of his record company."

 "Nothing has ever stayed subversive for very long. But suddenly, subversion was just another trademark, and regardless of how safe or dangerous a band's image, they were more than likely put together by market research and corporate planning. Of course, we on Hanari took it a stage further," David chuckled maniacally. "Nobody manufactures bands like we do. Well, enough!" He was suddenly serious. "It's all bollocks. It must end now!"

 "He's right," said Doyle. "But we can't take him with us."

 "Well we certainly can't leave him here," said Benny. "Maybe the girl can get him to safety. If we showed her..."

 "No," interrupted Doyle. "No, that's too much of a risk. We have to keep them with us, that's the only way we can guarantee their safety in this place. We should get going"

 Benny took her jacket off and put it round David's shoulders. It hung limply down to his waist, soaking up some of the blood. He didn't seem to notice it. She wrapped a sheet around his abdomen and he clutched it tightly.

 "There's something very wrong here," Benny whispered to Doyle as the five of them headed for the lift. "That's the girl who tried to shoot Li Duc."

 To be concluded.