The Incident Management office was a washed-out grey, sterile and hard. Aside from the cold metal table at which she sat there was nothing save the chair Keri was using and the one across from her, currently occupied by an Ink-Man giving her a short smile as he passed her a drink.

"So," he said, sitting back. "You say you have something important to tell us. What would that be?"

The Ink-Man was a tall, square-jawed man in the same black splashed-with-white uniform they all wore. The fluorescent glare of the lighting above turned his skin almost as pale as the white of his outfit, while the stripes on his sleeves marked him as an officer in their quaint, old-fashioned way of distinguishing seniority within the organisation. His hair was close-cropped, an unusual sight. It was clear that here was a man who took himself very seriously.

"It's all very... difficult… to believe," said Keri, taking the cup in hands that were shaking, she was surprised to see.

"Try me," said the lieutenant, smile returning once more before settling back into an observant expression, watchful of the visitor to their station.

And she was a visitor, wasn't she? Keri didn't understand why they had been split up upon entry, Keri being taken to this room first. She didn’t know where the others had been taken. They distrusted Ink-Man, for some reason, and this she knew would not have made them feel any easier.

"It's... um... well, I don't think we did anything illegal, but..." Her words trailed off under the raised eyebrow and curious look the ink-man gave her.

"Illegal? Well, not much is illegal, these days," he said, emphasising the word. "But what there is we tend to come down very hard on. Interesting company you keep, that bunch of analogues."

He gave an unsettling chuckle.

Something was very wrong.

Fuck it, thought Keri.[1]

"Look, is there something wrong? Because you're creeping me out here. You..."

"Ah..." The ink-man held up a palm towards her, cutting her off.

He put a hand up to his ear, eyes down, listening to an ear implant. He nodded softly a few times and mumbled a response before once more lowering his hands and smiling. Or at least showing his teeth.

"Seems like the higher-ups are taking a personal interest in you," he said, pushing himself up from the table. "I was hoping I could find out exactly why your face has been plastered all over our info-sphere for the past week, but I guess I'll have to wait."

The smile again.

"See you."

He walked to the heavy door, which opened as he approached, and stepped out as the last of his words hung in the air. The door slammed behind him.

Keri sat there, mind racing. The door was the same flat, bare grey as the walls, handle-less and offering no hope of exit without someone operating it from the other side.

Minutes passed.

Keri gave a start when the door swung open once more, without warning. Through it stepped a man wearing a uniform she had never seen in person before. It was a suit of black, not the ordinary black of the ink-men's clothes but a deep, rich black that seemed to absorb the light around it. It bore no decoration.

"Ah, good afternoon," he said, striding over to the opposite chair and sitting down. "My name is lieutenant Pearce. Now, you came here with something to tell us, yes?"

The man in front of her was a Purist, as usual turning up wherever the last vestiges of authority remained. His midnight uniform marked him out as a follower of the Manual more fervent than even Kilgore had been.

…and Kilgore tried to grind us into dust, Keri remembered.

The thing about the single-minded people who wore the black uniforms was that they were driven. The same belief, even obsession, that led such people to places of worship in earlier times now drove them to the Manual, and to the top echelons of power where they could ensure the prolongation of their own convictions.

In many sections of the spheres this global grouping of Manual fanatics was derisively labelled ‘the Church,’ and they were said to use their network of connections and positions to protect each other from unwanted attention. It was likely that Pearce would consider himself a Purist first, and an Ink-man second.

He had steepled his fingers, Keri saw, never a good sign.

"Well... yes. Look, a few days ago I was just another citizen, floating the spheres when I could and figuring how to spend time when I couldn't. I didn't want any part of this... this madness," she said.

"Of course you didn't," said Pearce. "But it seems this 'madness' found you anyway. So, where is the data sphere?"

Keri jolted in her chair.

"You know? Then what the hell is this whole song and dance? Why didn't you come and help us?"

Pearce frowned, tilting his head forward and staring at her through narrowed eyes.

"Help you? Ms Deven… may I call you Keri..? Well, Keri, we've been trying to find you since the moment we discovered your involvement in this matter. It's you who have been hiding, and we'd really like to know how."

Keri froze at the sound of her surname, one she hadn't used or even thought about in a long time. It meant little to her now, a remnant of a life that had evaporated into months and years of private existence. It was the way of things; the necessity for family and friends faded when the spheres were always there for you.

"Hiding? We haven't been hiding, we've been running. If you'd really been looking, you would have found us days ago."

Pearce shook his head.

"Keri, I am not sure what the game you are trying to play here is, but we have been running hundreds of search programs dedicated to locating you ever since we tracked the sphere to a suspicious death at a certain 'nightclub.[2]' What we want to know is how you evaded them; every single camera and drone feed, each terminal ping and trace we ran. It should not be possible, and quite frankly it worries us."

He paused, drawing a deep breath.

"Yet now you come wandering in here of your own accord. So yes, perhaps we can help you, if you help us. Which is why I need you to tell me now where the sphere is, and who else knows about it."

Something made Keri's mouth clamp shut. She didn't trust this man, not one bit. It didn't matter what he said, his whole demeanour was threatening. There was no way she was going to tell him where the...

"It's in your pocket," Pearce said suddenly.

Dammit, thought Keri, cursing herself. Still, to be fair, she hadn't been expecting to have to hide the thing.

Now, though, it was patently obvious from his hungry expression that what Pearce wanted more than anything was the sphere that she carried, and she was loathe to give it to him.

"You do not exactly have a choice in this matter," he said, as if reading her mind. "I can, of course, take it by force. I would however prefer not to do so."

"Why do you want this so bad?" she said, taking the sphere out and holding it up to the light. Pearce practically salivated at the sight. "It's really the last remaining copy, then?"

"Hmmm, so we have been informed," replied the man, not taking his eyes from the sphere. "Information has been scarce from the Terminal, it is true, but to finally be able to see it, to be able to leash it..."

Pearce blinked and shook himself from his mesmerized state, realising he had said too much. He met Keri's gaze as understanding bloomed in her mind.

"You didn't have access to it, did you? Oh shit... the Terminal was keeping it away from Ink-Man, wasn't it?"

"Corporal!" cried Pearce, as Keri tried to shove the sphere back into her pocket and stand.

She was stopped by a painful pressure on her shoulder, and a large hand pried the sphere from her grip. She had as much chance of resisting as a pebble did tectonic shifts.

A hulking man who had somehow got behind her dropped the sphere into Pearce's outstretched hands and stood to attention, one hand still firmly holding Keri in place. He stared straight ahead, unblinking, as if the hand that was crushing her shoulder was an entity of its own. She struggled and the grip tightened even further, relaxing again only when she did.

Something seemed to break in Pearce, some tightly wound thread that had been hidden until now. A genuine smile flickered across his face as he drew out a data port from somewhere and dropped the sphere into it. His corps blossomed into life, reams and reams of data pouring down it.

"Beautiful..." he whispered, then looked up in surprise at the guard and prisoner, for that is what Keri now knew she was. He looked as if he had forgotten them.

"Oh, do take her away, please," he said, before stopping them with a shout as the door swung open. "I really have to thank you, you know. You and your analogue friends are the only reason we now have access to this thing, you see, despite all our efforts to get it for ourselves. Now we can ensure it remains fully under our control, fully ours and not us its. You may have saved the future of the human race. So..." he said, as the door closed behind her. "Thank you."

[1] Cassandra's use of the old classics was catching.

[2] He pronounced this with the same intonation as one might say 'septic tank.'