He was still screaming when Theodoros Gyges appeared at the very edge of seeing.

Impossible. But there it was, the coarse beard climbing acne-scarred cheeks, the bearish eyes far too sharp for such a blunt face, there, hanging on the verge of visual oblivion, motionless, watching with the blank fascination of a tourist who had wandered through an EMPLOYEES ONLY door at Disney World.

Thomas spared him no thought.

He had no thought to spare.

The billionaire strode into the blurred circle of his agony. Thomas did not care when he raised the crowbar. He did not rejoice when Neil looked up from his monitors too late. He did not start at the watermelon-thump. He did not thank God.

The crowbar fell again and again. Screens and equipment danced to spitting sparks.

Then the pain was gone.

Nora twitched across from him, her eyes rolled back into her head. Neil lay stretched across the concrete floor, his face bent toward Thomas, his body broken-doll still. He seemed to blink and work his mouth. Somehow Thomas knew that his neck was broken.

The burly man stepped up to Thomas, peered into his face. Thomas tried to say, 'It's me,' but he had screamed his voice to blood.

With thick thumbs, Gyges unscrewed the bolts holding his head in place. The pain of unthreading the bone seemed almost a joke. Thomas let his chin loll against his chest as the man unbuckled the remaining restraints.

'It's me,' Thomas finally rasped. 'It's me, Mr Gyges… Thomas Bible.'

The billionaire nodded. 'And that's him?' he said, nodding to Neil across the floor.

'It's him… Neil Cassidy.'

The billionaire held Thomas's elbow as he stepped clear. Even so, he fell to his knees.

'You followed me.'

'The GPS in my car,' Gyges said.

It seemed to Thomas that he had known all along. That he had waited. Everything had coordinates, nowadays, even roads unmarked on any map. Everyone could be found.

'You get your family,' the man said. 'Then you leave.'

'I-I do-don—'

'You leave!' Gyges barked. 'You do not want to hear… to see…'

He turned from Thomas, pulled a long knife from a sheath strapped to his left calf. He kneeled, placing his right knee in the small of Neil's back. He used the knife to scratch an itch on his bearded cheek. Thomas saw dried blood marring its sheen.

He felt no surprise. He lacked the neurotransmitters.

'The spine is the door, the connection…' Gyges said, looking at the task before him. He turned to Thomas, his piggish eyes rounding in a kind of wonder. 'Cut it and the soul is preserved, kept safe, wrapped in a box…

'Don't you see?' Gyges hissed, staring down his cheeks like some ancient chieftain. 'I only fuck the meat.'

Thomas backed away from the madman, knowing there was no reason, no connection…

He was just noise. One more senseless output.