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.‘I.sure.White wine, sweet, right?’‘You remember? That’s nice.’He escaped to the bar, his heart thumping.He ordered a wine and stared back at the beautiful woman in the booth.She wore a silver lame dress that followed the curves of her body like waves of liquid mercury.She was even more stunning than he remembered her.Staring at her across the rapidly filling bar, he felt the renewal of the familiar and sickening emotion that had gripped him during the time he had worked with Artois a year ago.He returned to the booth with her drink.‘Thanks, Hal,’ she said, sipping and eyeing him over the glass.He could not stop the laboured pounding of his heart as he stared across the table at the fine, angled planes of her face.‘What the hell,’ he found himself asking, ‘are you doing here?’She laughed.‘I was in the city doing a little publicity.’ She wrinkled her nose at him.‘And I thought, why not drop by and see how Halliday’s doing these days? So I went to the office, and it’s all locked up.Then a stall-holder told me you were here.It’s great to see you again, Hal.How’s work?’He shrugged.‘Work’s work,’ he said, finding it hard to believe that she really was here.‘You know how it is.Cases come in, and some I solve and others.’ He shrugged again.She once meant a lot to me, he thought, and I blew it.‘I’m staying with friends up in Nyack,’ she said.‘You know it?’‘Matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I was up there on a case the other day.’‘You don’t say, Hal? How about that for a coincidence.Tell me about it.’He shrugged.‘Just another missing persons case.A Cyber-Tech employee went walkabout, or was kidnapped, or whatever.I went up there on a tip-off, looking for this organisation.’‘You found where they were based.’He looked at her.‘Yeah, yes I did.’ He paused, wondering at her interest.She nodded.‘You know who these kidnappers are?’He shook his head.‘Enough of my work,’ he said.‘Tell me about what you’re doing these days.’‘Oh, nothing interesting.I’d rather hear about—’For a fraction of a second, the image of her beauty froze.The drinkers around them in the bar stopped suddenly, drinks stilled before open mouths.The hubbub of the bar ceased, replaced by an eerie and absolute silence.Halliday felt himself lose his grip on this reality, felt his sense of touch depart him.The image of the bar before him was locked.It was as if he was staring at a stilled holo-screen, the actors frozen in mid-gesture.He wondered, for a second, if he was going mad.Then the bar disappeared, and the vision of Vanessa Artois with it, and he was aware of himself floating in the familiar medium of the suspension gel, rising from the tank as someone hauled him out by the arm.He struggled to free his face from the visor.He felt hands on his arms and legs, pulling free the leads and sensors.Physical awareness returned to his body, filling him with nausea and sickness.As he stepped from the tank, the muscles of his legs protested.Oh, Christ.He felt his legs weaken and buckle and he collapsed against the side of the tank.Then he heard a familiar voice.‘C’mon, Hal! This ain’t no time for amateur dramatics.Get dressed!’He clutched the tank, staring at the figure before him.Christ, but it was Barney.Or rather it looked like Barney.The same face, only younger.‘Barney?’ he said, incredulous.The figure threw a bundle of clothes at him.Halliday caught them, for a second too stunned to act.‘Move it, Hal! We gotta get outta here!’He dressed in a daze, working solely by touch as he stared at the figure of Barney Kluger before him.This Barney was a little taller, not as paunchy.He had the same heavy-jawed face, the same receding hair.‘You look like you seen a ghost, Hal,’ Barney said.‘I think I have.’Barney embraced him, slapped his back.‘Solid flesh and blood, this ghost.’Halliday felt the solidity of Barney against him, experienced a surge of emotion he could not name - the desire to believe that Barney had miraculously risen from the dead, together with an intellectual knowledge of the impossibility of that hope.He shook his head, on the verge of tears.‘You’re dead,’ he said.‘You died back in.’‘So I came back to life, Hal,’ Barney said.‘Look, I’ll explain later, okay? It’s a long story.For now, just trust me.’Halliday screwed his eyes shut, but when he opened them again Barney was still standing before him.‘What the hell’s going on?’ he managed.Barney - or whoever it was - stared at him.‘Remember the broad who called by your office earlier? The guy who jumped you? You’ve been in VR since then.’Christ.Hehad come round feeling great, attributing it to some anaesthetic effect of the knock-out spray.All along he’d been tanked.He pulled on his shoes.‘Okay, fine.I’m knocked out by two intruders and placed in my own tank.I wake up and continue my life as if nothing had happened.But why the hell did they do that?’‘Because they want to know everything you know about the Methuselah Project, the case you’re working on at the moment.Why do you think they sent Wellman to question you?’Halliday held his head.‘But Wellman knows all about the case.I mean, I told him everything the other—’ He stopped.‘That wasn’t Wellman you met earlier, Hal.It was a construct, to fool you into telling it what you knew about the case.’He shook his head, dazed.‘But who wants to know about the Methuselah Project?’‘Mantoni.They’re paranoid about the people running the Methuselah Project.They want to know what they’re up to, why they’ve been raiding Mantoni sites, rustling information.’‘How do you know this?’‘Couple of days back, I overheard ‘em planning to dupe you.’ He stopped.‘Hey, we’re standing around here gabbing like old maids.Let’s get the hell out.’They left the bedroom and paused in the office.‘You still keep the hardware and ammo in the bottom drawers?’ Barney asked, moving to the desk.Halliday took the keys from the top left drawer and passed them to Barney.Seconds later Barney found a body-holster and his old automatic.He hurried to the door.‘You got the car?’‘Outside.’‘I need to take it for a while, okay? Come with me.I’ll drop you off.You go to earth and stay hidden for a while, got that? We’ll arrange to meet somewhere in a couple of days.’‘Why split up? Why not—?’“Cos the bastards got a trace on me.They’re on my tail right now.I plan to lead them a dance, pick ‘em off one by one till they have no more operatives able or willing to risk themselves trying to track me down.Then.then I’ll try to work out how to get rid of the fucking beacon.Let’s go.’He hurried down the stairs.Halliday looked back at the office, some vague thought niggling at him.The oak tree? He’d left it in the back of the car.But that had been in VR.Here, in this reality, it stood on the desk.He ran to the desk, grabbed the oak, and locked the door after him.Twilight was falling in the street outside.Barney stood by the Ford
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