Jeff woke up in the back of the car he’d stolen, now parked behind a bar and grill in Lakeside with his down jacket pulled up over his shoulders. He sneezed loudly, though he’d left the heating turned up full all night. The recycled air tasted stale, humid and disgusting.

Pushing himself upright, he found to his relief that the clothes he’d left draped over the backs of the two front seats had mostly dried out. Wincing at the smell, he dragged on his shirt and trousers, then fumbled to open a door before dragging himself out into painfully bright morning sunlight. The car had expanded to allow him the room he needed to sleep, but upon sensing his exit it hummed and creaked as it reassumed its default configuration. A room in a local motel would have been a lot more comfortable, but it had occurred to Jeff that it might well be the first place the surviving assassin would think of looking for him.

He stepped around to the front of the bar, and glanced up and down the single highway running through the small town. He could see two- and three-storey buildings stretching off in either direction, while bull pines spread up the steep slopes rising immediately beyond the rooftops, reaching towards the wisps of cloud streaking an azure sky. Jeff activated his contacts, and a breakfast menu appeared next to the bar’s entrance.

Jeff listened to his stomach grumble, then noted with some misery that the bar wouldn’t open for another couple of hours.

serace="Times New Roman">Something flashed in the corner of his vision and he saw that he’d finally got a reply from Mitchell Stone. He’d tried to get hold of him a dozen times as he fled in the stolen car, before finally giving up, so he opened the message without hesitation. Through his contacts, Stone’s words were projected as thick black letters floating against the brilliant sky.

Need to talk with you urgently, the message read. Bring Dan to these coordinates, and meet me there.

The coordinates were tagged on to the end of the message, which turned out to be someplace in Sioux Falls, the better part of two thousand kilometres to the east.

Sioux Falls, wondered Jeff. What the hell was in Sioux Falls?

He swallowed, his throat dry, and wondered again if looking to Mitchell for help was the right decision. But there were so many questions Jeff wanted to ask him – so many! How on Earth could he have survived, where Vogel hadn’t? And where had Eliza actually had him taken after he was rushed back home?

In that same moment, Jeff became aware of someone watching him from across the road. It was a middle-aged man, in scuffed trousers and work-shirt, leaning against the wall alongside a fabricator kiosk.