He led the way, Albert close behind, over towards where the giant pipes jutted out of the debris, like so many flopping tongues of a medieval metal monster. Seeing them up close, Albert was struck by how huge they were; he could easily have walked into the smallest of them and his head would still have been a few inches shy of the roof. He still couldn’t see anyone though. The area seemed completely deserted.

And then he saw the man.

He lounged easily inside one of the pipes that was a good ten feet off the ground, his back resting against the inner wall. As they came up to him he swung himself down, landing on his feet as lightly and effortlessly as an acrobot. Straightening up, he stood there, feet planted on the ground. Albert stepped in closer and got his first real look at an Outlier.

He was of no more than medium height, but so thin he looked much taller. Thick black hair fell down to his shoulders from under a black cloth knotted on his head. His clothes were black too, and seemed to have been fashioned with a knife out of sackcloth—the kind of knife that he had at his side. His face was gaunt and almost unbelievably pale, dominated by a long, sharp nose; on either side of it, from under hooded eyelids, looked out the coldest, emptiest black eyes that Albert had ever seen. There was something frightening about those eyes, something remote, as if their owner was, in some way, removed from everything they surveyed. Albert had felt intimidated by Ollie in the living room earlier, but there was something primal, almost wild, about this stranger that sent an inexplicable thrill of fear running through him. And this was the man who presumably was to be his ‘next minder’!

The man stared at them as they walked up to him, his eyes never leaving them for a moment, although his face was so expressionless he could have been looking at an empty clearing, for all that you could have told from his countenance.

Ollie, on the other hand, seemed positively delighted to see him. ‘Well, look what popped out of the garbage!’ he hissed, almost trilling, he was so happy. ‘I thought we might see you here!’

‘You were right.’ It was a voice to match the face—quiet, bleak and expressionless.

‘You know, your sourness’ll get you ’fore the larries will, Marcus. So tell me. You got any vinegar?’

‘I always ask him that,’ he confided in Albert, grinning. ‘Old joke between old friends, you know?’

In front of them, the man called Marcus shifted slightly, his face relaxing into an almost imperceptible smile. ‘Perhaps.’

Ollie nudged Albert, violently enough to make him feel more than a sharp pain in the side. ‘See! He always says that too!’