Briefly there had been a night, very briefly. The sun had dipped behind the horizon for two solstan hours before creeping back. As if this momentary lapse had allowed it through, a green bank of cloud rose from the further horizon and rolled in with pinwheels of lightning scoring its underbelly. Stanton took another bite from the kebab he had bought inside, and wondered just what sort of meat he was eating. What sort of vegetation for that matter. It was after inspecting the contents of his meal for a moment that he looked along the length of the old road. Down the sides of the compacted and fused-earth surface were deep storm gullies. He had heard it could be bad here. What most puzzled him were the square panels set along the road at regular intervals. They were painted black and yellow, and each had a letter and a number. The letter was always a C and the numbers ascended in order. He was staring at these when a woman with a shaven and tattooed skull stumbled from The Sharrow. She was painfully slim in her jeans and padded sea-fibre jacket, and her skin had a bluish tint. Probably part Outlinker, he thought.

‘What are those?’ he asked, pointing at the squares when she gave him a once-over.

She looked confused for a moment, and then waved an arm dismissively. ‘Car clamps,’ she said, and stumbled off.

Stanton filed this information under miscellaneous, then looked back up the road in the other direction. The familiar loom of Mr. Crane stomping along behind Pelter was not difficult to miss. He finished his meal in a couple of hurried bites, wiped his hands on a tissue and tossed that tissue into a nearby bin. As Pelter drew closer, Stanton saw that something had changed.

‘New aug,’ he said.

Pelter reached up and touched the reptilian aug clinging behind his right ear. Perhaps it was something about the light, the weight of cloud above and the flickering of yellow lightning, but Stanton felt sure he had seen the aug move under Pelter’s touch. It was the final step, Stanton thought. Pelter had once been an attractive man; now, with his head made lopsided by two mismatched augs, the optic link in his suppurating eye socket and a face grown haggard and perpetually twisted by whatever drove him, he was ugly. Without a doubt he now looked what he was.

‘A new aug,’ Pelter repeated.

‘OK,’ said Stanton when it became apparent Pelter intended to say no more. He glanced up at the darkening sky and felt the first slimy drops of rain on his face. ‘Storm on the way, and they can be bad here.’ He looked at Pelter again. ‘The boys are inside. Any luck with a dealer?’

Pelter nodded and gestured towards the arched entrance of The Sharrow. Side by side they walked through, Mr. Crane at their back, a brass shadow.