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do you truly want my advice?”
    Keenan turned, fixing his gaze on the Security PopBot. He gave a curt nod and waited, head to one side, unreadable look fixed to his mask.
    “Let Akeez go. Stay here, run your little PI business and accept that sometimes in life justice is not achieved. Murders do go unsolved. Evil is not always punished. The weak are not always protected by the strong. Sometimes, Keenan, life is a bitch, and there’s just nothing you can do about it.”
    “OK.” He turned, stared out to sea. Waves rolled over the shore, crested with a bubbling of foam.
    “But you’re going to ignore my advice, aren’t you? You’re going to head off on a mission in the name of adventure, in the name of honour, in the name of justice.”
    “Yes.”
    “Why, Keenan? My prediction algorithms show you have a very low chance of survival, never mind success. And that’s just breaking out Franco and Pippa, before we even look at finding this psychic lump of mythological junk. There is a 99.97 percent chance that Pippa will rip off your head and piss down your neck. Why do it? Why risk so much?”
    “Risk?” Keenan did not turn. His voice was obloquial. “Because I owe it to the memories of the ones I love.”
    His words were so gentle they merged with the nearby hiss of the surf eroding the shingle beach.
    Cam didn’t see the tears on the man’s cheeks.
     
    Franco Haggis was in a world of pain.
    “Get off me, you bastards!” he bellowed as the doctor and five stocky mental nurses squeezed into the Treatment Chamber and backed the swaying figure of Franco towards a row of benches. “I warn you, I used to be in a combat squad! I can kill a man with a single blow!”
    “Of course you can,” said Dr. Betezh, standing with long powerful arms loose by his sides. His small black eyes were focused on Franco. His white crisp uniform was wrinkle-free, and only a little speckled with patients’ blood.
    He looks like a shark, Franco realised.
    And... a killer.
    Franco felt the alloy bench press into his spine and he halted, calming his breathing. His head pounded from imbibed drugs. He felt groggy, senses treacle, limbs responding as if inebriated on the vodka he loved so much. With eyes gleaming like a cornered rat’s, he dropped his chin and allowed his hands to fall by his sides.
    He would submit.
    He would roll over and... die ...
    Dr. Betezh took another step forward, with infinite caution. He was no fool, and had played this game a million times over, in simulators and in the real world. His arms lifted and he sensed the threatening presence of the nurses behind him; three carried steel truncheons, and Betezh’s nostrils twitched at the subtle smell of oiled metal. Curiously, it aroused him.
    Another step forward...
    One more.
    The smile was just spreading to Betezh’s lips as Franco sprang, a right hook thundering against the doctor’s head with such power that Betezh was spun around a hundred and eighty degrees and dropped to his knees .
    There came a rush as the nurses charged Franco, accepting his powerful blows with an air of resignation until within the anarchy of mêlée a slam from a steel truncheon caught Franco across the forehead with a dull metallic slap. He went down, and he went down hard.
    Dr. Betezh climbed to his feet as the five men (two with black eyes, one with a broken nose, one with estranged testicles) strapped Franco to the nearest bench. Buckles were tightened without finesse; straps levered into position with a weight of anger and pain. The men checked, double checked and triple checked every possible point of weakness.
    “All yours, boss.”
    Betezh nodded, moving to stand over Franco.
    “Ahh, Franco.” Betezh leant forward, placing a hand on Franco’s arm. To an outsider, it would have appeared a gesture of tenderness, but as Franco’s eyes flickered open and clouds of red dissipated, he saw the movement for what it was: a frightening dead-zone of calm... before the oncoming rage of