Part Four: You and your Devil.
Mick Routledge changed his mind and got off the Tube train at Stamford Brook, acknowledging that some impulses made less sense in the context of threat management.
Hitting the intercom button for flat 27A, he took a deep breath and prepared himself as best he could.
"Yeah?"
Male voice, no distinct accent. Just a hint of thudding, grimy techno in the background. Shit.
"Hi, is Sasha there?"
A pause, long enough for him to almost recognise the tune in the background, ended with a distinctly feminine laugh.
"She is," replied the male voice. "And she would like to know how men love."
Mick frowned. This was old school, and he hadn't been expecting it.
"In haste," he said, "But they detest at leisure."
"Bravo, Byron." The buzz of the door release made his palm twitch. "Come on up."
To say that the flat had changed since Mick had last seen it four months ago would be an understatement. The girl who let him in introduced herself as Omni, and waved him through the incense clouds towards the now blue-painted living room, where two heavily-bearded men with shaved heads were working on high-end Linux laptops, coding God knows what. One of them looked up as he entered the room, nodded and smiled.
"Love nature more than Man, dude."
"I never really find that difficult. Maybe I should've brought flowers..."
"Not with my allergies," said Sasha, patting him on the back and taking a hit from her E-cigarette. "It's good to see you, Mick. Sorry for the...formalities."
He stared at her, taking in the now-blonde hair, the military-style clothing, and her determinedly geeky spectacles.
"Glad I remembered my Byron," he said. "I was going to say something about absence, but I guess you've got that covered, too."
She smiled, ushering him towards the sofa in the corner. The music faded out and ceased.
"Four months, two days. I think you're cured. Omni, could you throw together some cocktails? The boys would probably appreciate some enhanced coffees, too." Omni nodded, and went into the kitchen.
"Enhanced?" asked Mick, studying the two coders with interest. They appeared to be working in unison.
"There are stimulants, and there are precursors to augmented decisive action. Right now, Gary and Hans are maximising the potential Brexit investment opportunities with a freaking vengeance, and need the latter."
Mick laughed, and reached into his pocket for his own E-cig. Sasha stayed his hand.
"Try this," she said, passing him her own, "And if it hits a nerve, let me be the first to tell you that enhancement has a universal application across delivery systems."
Mick Routledge took the device from her, fascinated merely by being in her presence again.
"Sasha, I'm going to want to talk to your suppliers, aren't I? What have you done? Got THC into a heatable liquid?"
She laughed.
"Close, but no traditional cigar. At least, not in this case. Rest easy, Mick. Time is infinitely mutable for those who appreciate how complexity can slipstream into simplicity."
He pressed the button on the device and inhaled deeply, breathing in the vapour. Omni returned from the kitchen with two cocktail glasses filled with pinkish liquid, setting them down on the black-painted coffee table.
"Enjoy," she said, reaching out to Mick but not making contact. "Don't forget your purpose."
"Purpose?" Mick pressed the button again. "Purpose! Of course." He reached into his shirt pocket for the flash drive. "Sasha, you need to see this. It came in today. Sara Ryland. I think there's something..." The second hit from Sasha's modified E-cig suddenly took hold. "Holy crap, what's in this?"
Sasha leant forward, extricating the flash drive from his pocket as Mick leaned back on the sofa, lost in his own semi-hallucinatory distractions.
"Hans, we have something new. Take a break and fire it up, would you?"
They watched the .mp4 file on the flash drive - twice. Omni was the first to speak:
"So...many...levels."
Gary nodded.
"I think the poetry of heaven just gained a few more stars."
Hans looked up at Sasha, his hands still poised above his keyboard.
"Psytrophic animensis, Sasha. I've seen this before, but not for a very long time."
Sasha nodded, glancing at Mick on the sofa, now passed out and snoring.
"Agreed. I thought he was dead, but Phylos Cade is obviously still alive. We need to find this...Sara Ryland."
Omni shrugged, and headed back to the kitchen.
"Enhanced coffees all round, then."
To be continued...
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