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of the south-east and at eight to twelve kilos: a light breeze.”
    “Travel off-line please.”
    Score one for Gabriel, I thought. The bitch from hell did try to get in my mind while I was in there, but my plan seemed to have worked. At least I am free. When I came out of the Lev before going to the Director’s office I remembered Gabriel’s warning about Agent Cochran with a vengeance. It scared me enough that the urge to relieve myself was desperate. I headed for the nearest outlet to have a think and I came up with the idea that I would simply report exactly what had happened in the room and the rest of the time all I would think about was what a great guy the Director was and how much I would like to be like him.
    It is impossible to think of two things at the same time; we’re not dimensional enough to do that. It should be possible for our brains to do parallel processing, but we’re just not there yet. So if anyone did attempt to read what was in my mind then all they would get was that I really admired the Director.
    And I assume it had worked. The debrief had gone perfectly from my point of view and I could now just wait until eight hours passed or something happened that meant I had to go back. Either way, the fact that Agent Cochran did read my mind meant that Gabriel had told the truth about at least one thing and on that score he was doing better than anyone else so far today.
    “Arrived at destination, Arbitrator Oliver. Have a good day.”
    The Lev door opened and I stepped out into a covered area. In front of me was the entrance to the UNPOL Executive Club, to my left the railed walkway that ran around Topside. I took out my Devstick and said, “Give me a map of the Topside area nearest to me.” The map came up, I thumbed down to zoom in and said, “Find me nearest relax lounge outside of one kilom from where I am.” A kilom ought to be enough distance between me and UNPOL staffers.
    It was a bit early to have an alky and, strictly speaking, was against the rules, because although I had the day off I was on standby and therefore supposed to remain clean. But somehow, under the circumstances, I reckoned I’d be forgiven this small indulgence and headed for a Sky Level relax lounge. A name came up attached to a lounge icon on the map. Polar Nights. I thumbed ‘Go To’ and the shortest route was indicated with a thin red line. The directional arrow on my map pointed left, so I obeyed and started walking.
    The Topside area on Jurong Island is mostly new, except over near the wharves on the side closest to the mainland of New Singapore. There it narrows to a one hundred and eighty meter wide stretch that arches over the water between the mainland and the island of Jurong. The idea of a Topside had been voted in by New Singapore residents in 2085 – they were one of the early adopters although now most of the major cities have a Topside. By connecting all the high rise buildings with a structure that could accommodate the weight of full landscaping and maximum two-storey buildings, a new landscape was created on top of the city.
    Topside is mostly for relaxation and greenery, providing green open spaces for people who would otherwise be surrounded by metal, plastic and other manmade materials all of their lives. There aren’t any electric or other vehicles on Topside, except walkers and bicycles. I had taken the easterly route that would lead me in a half circle around the UNPOL golf course to the wharf area. Of course the wharves themselves are fifteen hundred meters below Topside but it was still called the wharf area.
    The rubberized walkway was mostly deserted as I walked along. A jogger in UNPOL tracksuit outers jogged past me and gave me a smile. I controlled my paranoia and smiled back. Discreet directional arrows set into the walkway beat a time with the directional arrow in the map on my Devstick and led me around a par three.
    I heard a golfer exclaim, “Shit,” as his ball hit the water