On the screen, Coran’s image shifted over to the left, and on the right appeared a three-dimensional image of Saul’s own head. The two slid together and overlaid to provide a visual representation of the computer making the required depth measurements. Removing a small medical kit from the toolbox, Saul next focused his attention on his arm. Calling up the menus in his eye again, he searched through and found the one accessing the implant presently under his skin, and shut it down. Next he took out the tester containing Coran’s implant, sterilized it, and his arm, then inserted the chip into a small injector to drive it under the skin of his forearm beside the others he hadn’t yet got round to having removed. Plenty of scar tissue was evident in that location, as this was the eighth identity he had stolen – or rather remembered stealing, for there had been scar tissue there before. Perhaps having no real identity of his own made this easier for him.

By the time this was all done, the plasfactor had finished its work and extruded a mask which, when glued into position, would fool most recognition systems. Once he arrived in London, all he would need to get into the Inspectorate cell block was another layer of the multi-refractive nanoskin on his palm, his artificial iris – oh, and the expensive suit neatly boxed beside him. He hadn’t bothered with trying to use Coran’s – too messy.

The first time he did it he thought he’d activated a holographic advertising projector, but then he knew that couldn’t be right. Who would bother advertising in an industrial complex overgrown with weeds and now only occupied, for as long as it was safe, by car breakers and those going about other nefarious deeds – like those selling cut implants? He studied the menu hovering to the right of his vision, and realized it must originate from within him.

‘Janus,’ he asked, ‘do I have a computer implant in my skull?’

‘Yes. My signal is relayed to your bonefones through it,’ his unseen companion replied.

‘I can see a computer menu hovering before me,’ Saul explained, ‘presumably relayed to my optic nerve from that computer implant. But how do I operate it?’

‘The control is in the skin of your right temple,’ Janus replied, ‘though the menu is projected up in the artificial retina inserted in your right eye.’ Artificial retina?