‘Leila.’ The voice called down into her dreams, pulling her back from the warm, soft place in which she slumbered.

Snorting, Leila pushed her face deeper into the pillows and tried to recapture sleep. She had been dreaming of the school incident, but it had not been the usual nightmare, from which she would wake shivering and sweating and afraid that the ceiling of her bedroom was about to come crashing down - no, in last night’s dream she had managed to save everyone, all with the help of her unknown Terraco saviour.

‘Time to get up,’ the voice came again, its tone precise and softly persistent.

With a groan Leila rolled onto her back, and the light filtering through the crack of her eyelids caused a spasm of pain. Screwing her eyes tight shut, she rubbed at her temple with one hand while reaching towards the bedside table with the other, groping for the visor.

Finding the device, she clipped it into place, and felt the tightness across her forehead subside. Only then did she try opening her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the skylight above her, nearly as big as the bed itself, pitch black, but for a speckling of stars.

‘Time, Winston?’ Leila asked, groggily.

‘7:45 am, as requested,’ said the voice, and she felt a pressure by her feet as someone perched on the end of the bed.

Staring up at the pale pixels of light upon the sky, Leila repeated the words she said every morning and night. ‘Worlds without number, possibilities given light, grant this wish I now recite,’ following them with her usual string of silent pleas.

Her mother had used the custom to comfort a young Leila, frightened by her first glimpse of the black void of space. “The stars are actually distant worlds where infinite possibilities exist,” her mother had said, “make a wish, and it will surely come true.”  That had been back when Leila was six, and the pair of them still close.

 ‘Reset display to current time,’ Leila said, and instantly the scene above began to shift; stars swirling across the sky, leaving trails of light in their wake. The moon began to slip from view as the screen lightened, and in a matter of seconds the small window showed a summer’s sky: a spectral moon still faintly visible against a vibrant blue.

The skylight, like most decoration in the world, existed only in the digital realm of Leila’s EyeWare. It had cost her the better part of a year’s worth of credits, but it had been worth it to see the stars - even fake ones - each night before sleep.

Silly to wish on fake stars, she thought, but she had seen the real thing maybe five times in her entire life and that was not nearly enough of an opportunity to voice her many desires. ‘How’s the weather?’ she asked, knowing the answer.

 ‘Cloud cover is at 97% percent. Raining, of course,’ came Winston’s soft reply and the scene above changed once more as clouds rolled in, filling the small frame.

Rain began to hit the screen, accompanied by a soft patter. ‘One of these days you’ll surprise me by saying it’s clear blue sky from horizon to horizon,’ Leila grumbled.

‘I have done that precisely three times since coming into your possession,’ came the no-nonsense response.

‘That sounds about right,’ Leila muttered, morosely.

Leila’s vision ghosted momentarily and the skylight blurred as her visor slipped on her nose until it rested at an odd angle. Not her EyeWare, Leila reminded herself, as she reached up to adjust the visor where it didn’t quite meet her implants.

Leila’s EyeWare was presumably still in the lobby of the school, obliterated beneath the hundreds of tons of rubble that had nearly taken Bastion with it. The visor she was now wearing was the one she had picked up in her panic.

Who it had belonged to, Leila didn’t know for sure. It was too small for the security officers, or for Professor Karloff, all of whom had been killed in the explosion. More likely it had belonged to one of the seven dead students, though Leila didn’t much like to think about it.

That was Leila’s early reasoning as to why no-one had come forward to claim the visor. But over the days that followed the explosion it had became clear that there was another reason as to why no-one would want to be associated with the device: it had been hacked.

Jailbroken, people called it, and it was why Leila could use the visor, when EyeWare was supposed to be locked to an individual; it was also why there was no identifying data left on the device, and why it had several unofficial apps installed.

‘You really need to hand that thing in while you can still pretend it was a mistake,’ Winston said, the concern and irritation both clear in his tone.

Leila didn’t bother to respond; she had been through this argument countless times during the last month, with both Winston and Bastion. Both of them kept insisting she return the visor, but the illicit EyeWare was by far the most interesting thing to have happened in Leila’s short life and she wasn’t about to just give it up.

For twelve years Leila’s life had been tracked, day and night, by the signal emitted by the implants on her temples; it was how doors knew if she was permitted to enter; how she could buy food without ID; or how people could simply look at her and know her every detail.

This visor, however, had an app installed which made it possible for Leila to alter the signal being broadcast from the implants, and essentially fake her identity. While the network thought “Leila” was in privacy mode, the real girl could be anywhere in the world.

It wasn’t even like Leila was using the false ID for anything nefarious. Her sole reason for keeping the visor was for the small amount of freedom it allowed her: to be able to walk the streets without fear of saying or doing something that could be put on her record.

‘Tampering with company property is one of the most serious of contractual breaches; none more so than EyeWare,’ Winston cut across her thoughts.

‘I didn’t hack them,’ Leila snapped, defensively, though as Bastion had pointed out, this fact would do little to help her should she be found out.

Frowning at the grey clouds, Leila tried to ignore Winston’s nagging. She concentrated instead on a memory of something else above her, a face peering down; the young security officer who had done what she could not, and saved Bastion.

R-Tech News had listed her saviour only as, “other people present at the time of the incident,” entirely negating his part in the rescue. And so Leila needed to find the man; to apologise for R-Tech’s treatment, and to ask him why. Why had he been there? Why had he helped? Why had he risked his life when he was never going to be rewarded for his actions?

With his network privileges, Bastion could have found the man, but the ungrateful stooge didn’t want to risk his fancy new HR position, refusing to even provide Leila with a name, in case she immediately ran off to meet the stranger.

What would she say if she found the man? Leila could only imagine, since it was unlikely she would ever see him again. Self-consciously, Leila rolled onto her side, and hugged the blankets to her chest, her thoughts a thousand miles away.

Winston coughed, politely, ‘I don’t mean to intrude, but you now have only thirty minutes to get to the memorial ceremony.’

Brought back to the present, Leila muttered a sullen, ‘I don’t want to go.’

‘So you’ve said before, but you don’t have a choice.’

‘I can do anything I like,’ she growled. ‘I’m still technically in a period of mourning.’

All students at her school had been granted four weeks to recover from the trauma of the attack, during which they were required to hold daily sessions with an online counsellor, but had otherwise been freed of all responsibilities. Add to the mix Leila’s new fake ID, and she had essentially gained the freedom she had always wanted - if only temporarily.

‘And all it took were the lives of twelve people,’ Leila muttered, to herself.

‘Sorry?’ Winston asked.

‘Nothing...’ She sighed, and wished for nothing more than to fall asleep surrounded by the patter of rain; to forget this unfair world for a little while longer.

‘You are to be a guest of honour,’ Winston added, telling Leila nothing she didn’t already know. ‘It would be bad for everyone if you didn’t show your respects.’

For Leila, the idea that she was being heralded as a hero was perhaps the worst thing about how her company had handled this incident. She didn’t deserve an award for what she had done: not for running from the one person who needed her most.

‘If we’re going, let’s get it over with,’ she muttered, finally sitting up and stretching. Then, with a touch of insolence slipping into her tone, she added, ‘but I’m using my false ID to get transport, there’s no way I’m walking on a day like this.’

Perched at the end of her bed, Winston - a stuffed purple hippopotamus about fifty centimetres tall - stared gravely back up at her from deep, black eyes. Head cocked and his pink mouth slightly ajar, he said, soberly, ‘as you wish, Leila, I’ll order a taxi.’

Twenty minutes, a quick shower and an automated drive later, Leila found herself stood awkwardly to the rear of a large stage that had been erected in the recreation yard of her school, a selection of her classmates lining up to either side.

Together, they watched, as a procession of cars took turns to pull up at the school’s gates; dispensing a continuous stream of black suited men and women, a mixture of company representatives and the relatives of those killed in the explosion.

The figures filed silently into the recreation ground and found their seats directly in front of the stage, whilst behind them nearly two thousand students stood in perfect rows.

Leila found herself half wishing that she had let Bastion and her parents come - for she could have used their moral support - but in a way she was also glad they weren’t here, for she would have felt even more of a fraud when faced with the boy she had failed.

Once everyone was seated, a woman identified by Leila’s EyeWare as a Manager of Condolences took centre stage. The black-clad woman had a long, hollow face and a deep sober voice that seemed hand-picked for such occasions. She gave a brief introduction to the day, thanking people for coming, before introducing the day’s main speaker.

This man, Leila recognised, for she was already sick of seeing his thin lineless face and his mouth drawn perpetually down at the corners. Klarence Graytor was his name, and he had been all over R-Tech News for the past fortnight as the HR manager in charge of “the incident.”

Shaking the woman’s hand, the man glanced along the row of students who were waiting to be called, and for a second his flat gaze lingered on Leila, causing her to squirm uncomfortably. There was no emotion that she could detect behind his eyes - he looked at her as he might a table or a lamp - but in some way that was worse.

One, two, three, four heartbeats thudded against the inside of Leila’s chest before the man looked away, and her discomfort turned instantly to annoyance. This man represented everything she hated about the higher-ups in her company: the way they looked down on anyone in a lower position to them, as if rank was all that mattered in life.

Stepping to the front of the stage, the small figure made his speech; suggesting that they could all honour the dead by working hard to fill the void left behind; stressing the need for vigilance against outside elements; and finally extolling the importance of unity. Despite Leila’s opinion - that the whole thing seemed manufactured - she had to admit it was a good speech, causing many in the audience to openly weep.

When the man had finished talking, sombre music was played by the school’s band and then a minute’s silence was observed - all the trappings essential to prove that the proper amount of respect had been paid. Then, turned his empty eyes on those gathered at the back of the stage, the man began calling them forward.

One-by-one, Graytor shook their hands and pinned a digital medal to their chests, declaring every child a hero as he did so.

To Leila’s mind there was no-one here that fitted that title, least of all herself. Still, compared to some of her fellow honourees - who were presented medals for fetching water or for comforting someone injured - she supposed she was a veritable superhero.

Leila was the last in the line to receive a medal, and she ventured cautiously forward, aware of the many eyes upon her. But it was the man’s gaze, more than the watching crowds, which made Leila’s heart skip a beat. There was something dead about the man’s stare, though it wasn’t so much his bloodshot eyes that troubled her, but his expressionless face.

The man had no lines or wrinkles, despite being in his fifties. Leila doubted the man had paid for skin rejuvenation; not when he could have fixed his balding scalp for a fraction of the price. No, Leila had to assume the man’s lack of wrinkles was because he never showed any emotion: not love nor hate nor fear nor happiness.

The man’s touch as he briefly shook her hand was cold and clammy, as lifeless as his expression. ‘A true R-Tech employee, I think you’ll all agree,’ the man said, causing a cheer from the crowd. But his eyes never left Leila; never creased at the corners; and in her mind there was a touch of sarcasm to his words that the audience failed to pick up on.

‘And now for the final speech,’ the man said, and without further notice he took Leila’s shoulder and twisted her - almost viciously - to face the audience.

What had she done to upset this man? Was he just jealous of the attention she was getting, or was it the free credits she had received as reward for her bravery? Either way, his behaviour upset Leila, and she found herself nervously licking her lips as she stared out across the sea of faces, taking in the news drones circling above like vultures.

A prompt appeared, flashing in her visor, telling her to hurry along and, as if on auto-pilot, she began speaking in a quavering tone, her voice constricted by nerves, but being carried to the headphones of all those watching.

The words scrolling down her visor were not her own. It was probably a good thing that Leila had not been allowed to write her own speech for she would not have known what to say or, worse still, she would have said how she felt, and caused all manner of problems.

So she read aloud the story of a girl named Leila who had, if these words were to be believed, saved countless lives on the day of the incident. It talked about how the girl had been afraid, but how the unity of her fellow employees had driven her on; how, when all hope seemed lost, her R-Tech upbringing had pushed her to succeed.

It was the stuff of fairytales, impossible to imagine that anyone could fall for such drivel, and yet, as Leila looked down, she saw that many of the people in the front row were leaning forward in their chairs, hanging on her every word.

Half way through, and much to Leila’s embarrassment, an image of her face appeared above the crowd, glistening-eyed and blackened; captured in the moment she had burst from the smoking doorway. It was an image she was already sick of seeing; one used on every news report, symbolising both the tragedy and the bravery of the day. But, for Leila, the picture towering above her in the sky was a reminder of the fear she had felt in that moment.

Seeing her own frantic face staring down at her - as if in judgement - made Leila’s stomach churn, her head whirl, and she quickly garbled her way through the last of the speech.

She was no hero. A real hero would have died trying to save Bastion, not fled, only to be coaxed back by the help of a stranger. The fact that the image had been altered to erase the man who had been there to catch her; who had stopped her falling down the steps; only made things worse and she felt her heart begin to race. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right.

Before she could change her mind, Leila squared her shoulders and spoke aloud. ‘And let us also pay homage to the Terraco man who was the real hero of the day!’ she exclaimed, in a tone far clearer than at any other point in her speech.

She would have said more, but the crowd rose to their feet and began stamping and shouting, and Leila flinched away, thinking that they meant to storm the stage in protest. But then she saw their grins, heard their cheers, and she realised, angrily, that her voice must have been muted the moment she deviated from the script.

Glancing across at the thin man, Leila saw him hurrying over, his blank face dark with barely suppressed rage. He must have heard her transgression, but he maintained his professionalism, shaking her hand once more before quickly ushering her to her seat.

The next few minutes were a blur for Leila as she sat seething to herself, hearing nothing that was said in the process of wrapping up the ceremony. Through glazed eyes she watched the suited figures file through the repaired gatehouse, and then the Manager of Condolences dismissed the students, freeing them of responsibilities for the rest of the day.

Left to their own devices, the students milled around the yard for a minute or two before a few, braver souls made their way cautiously through the school’s entrance; every one of them clearly remembering how the lobby had looked the last time they were here.

They needn’t have worried: four weeks was all it had taken to remove any sign of the explosion. The repaired and refurbished lobby looked exactly as it once had, right down to the student-created decorations that had been saved from any damage by virtue of being digital.

The only change was in the centre of the lobby, where a large statue had been placed in almost the exact spot where Bastion had fallen. It, too, was a digital creation, but it was a well made one, appearing to have been carved from marble.

It showed the six teenagers who had died in the explosion, stood back to back, and with their arms links, staring defiantly out at the world. The four security guards and Professor Karloff would likely be commemorated somewhere else, and everyone would sooner forget Juran Merrick, the boy thought to be behind the attack.

The students had formed a line, filing past the memorial; some crying, some stopping to kneel in a gesture that seemed to hearken back to the time of religion. Leila felt herself following after them, unsure that she wanted to see the statue up close, but unable to stop.

Only the name of one of the victims rang any sort of bell within Leila, but it wasn’t until Leila ran a search on the girl’s ID that she realised they had shared a class for the last two years. They had sat less than a few metres away every day, and never known each other.

Staring into the statue’s blank eyes, Leila felt nothing: no click of recognition, no sadness, no regret. The only thing she felt was a bitter twinge of fear when she thought about how close she had come to joining the figures on this memorial. Would someone now be staring at her likeness and wondering who she was?

Leila’s insides ached, but for what she wasn’t sure. It was not the sadness she knew she should feel, nor was it the anger that Bastion and Leila’s mum had directed at Juran. Instead she found herself simply plagued by questions. Why had such a terrible thing happened? Why had Juran done it? Why had no-one noticed and stopped him?

Her frown deepening, Leila glared around at the crowd, feeling sure that all the people here were just pretending; imitating the emotions they thought they should feel. Surely every one of them had the same sorts of questions. So why were they not seeking out the answers? Why did they waste their time on this farce?

Her attention was instantly drawn to a figure stood alone in one corner, the only other person not looking at the memorial. With his head up, and no sign of anguish in his face, it was Klarence Graytor, the man from the ceremony; his gaze once more locked upon Leila.

A shiver ran through Leila’s body. Why was he staring at her like that? Was he still upset about what she had said on the stage? Was he really such a company fanboy that he hated to hear praise for any of the competition?

One other thought crept its way into her brain, and this one seemed far more important. Surely this man would have the answer to some of her questions. Before she could change her mind, Leila clenched her fists and marched towards her superior.

The man was shorter than Leila had thought, only a fraction taller than herself, and probably lighter. He was incredibly thin; thin enough that she had to assume he didn’t waste credits on extra food, and instead ate only the bare minimum provided by R-Tech.

‘Sir,’ she said, pushing down the bile she felt at using the word for this man.

A momentary widening of his eyes showed he was surprised by her approach, but the man collected himself quickly. ‘Ms Skye...’ he responded, forcing a smile to part his lips.

Why had she come here? What did she want to say? These thoughts flashed through Leila’s mind, too late now that she was stood before the man. But her mouth - as so often happened - was already moving of its own accord. ‘Why was I muted on stage?’

‘Because you went off script,’ the man said, simply, seeming unperturbed by her rude tone. ‘Every word of your speech was carefully chosen by a panel of experts; it was not open to interpretation by one naive self-obsessed girl.’ The man’s tone remained level, but his choice of words hinted that he might be annoyed by her question.

‘If it had to be so perfectly read, why not just use a recording?’ Leila blurted, even while knowing this whole conversation was a bad idea. If Bastion were here he would have clapped a hand over her mouth by now and dragged her away, apologising profusely.

The small man glanced around at the people walking within metres of them; the nearest glancing around at Leila’s raised voice. Graytor, too, seemed to realise this talk could prove troublesome, but for some reason he also didn’t want it to stop.

Reaching purposefully up, the man tapped the privacy button on his visor and then stared at Leila, the red light blinking ominously. He wanted her to do the same, Leila realised, but she hesitated a moment, worried that this might be a trick of some sort.

Yet there would never be another opportunity like this; in her life no superior had ever offered to speak with her off the record. So Leila raised one slightly shaking hand and pressed the button. Instantly the hushed murmur of voices was silenced, she was now talking in her own little bubble, the student masses filling the lobby unable to hear a word she said.

‘I might as well not even be here,’ Leila said, bitterly, the moment she knew it was okay to speak without her words being heard by the network.

‘On that, we agree,’ the man said, drolly, his uncaring honesty a shock to Leila. She had expected him to be more forthcoming in privacy mode, but not quite so blunt.

‘I-I just wanted people to know what really happened,’ Leila stammered. She had been the one to tackle the small man head-on, and she wasn’t about to let him run all over her.

‘You want to tell them that some Terraco boy did everything?’ The man asked, his head tilting as he stared at her from behind his visor. ‘Or that you, their hero - their one shining example from this mess - did nothing but endanger the lives of others?’

His last words seemed to leap viciously out from the rest, burrowing deep into Leila’s skull and latching onto her brain. ‘W-what?’

The man sighed as if the need to explain such things was beneath both of them. ‘Before the explosion one of our fine security officers told you to leave the school,’ Graytor said, his voice never altering from its matter-of-fact drawl. ‘You disobeyed a direct order, and in doing so, you nearly got yourself and your friend killed.’

Leila looked sharply up, catching the man’s empty stare, and for a moment she was speechless. His words so perfectly summing up how she felt about the whole situation, that they seemed plucked from her own mind.

‘Now, I don’t mind what happens to you,’ the man continued, ‘but Bastion is a near perfect employee. It would have been a shame to lose someone whose only shortcoming was his irrational attachment to you.’

Leila’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. ‘If that’s how you feel, why give me this?’ she snapped, slapping her chest where the digital medal floated upon her blazer; wishing it was a real thing so she could tear it loose and throw it at the man.

Unperturbed by her anger, the man gave a shrug of his thin shoulders. ‘Despite your many flaws, you were the most proactive person on the day,’ he said. ‘And while, personally, I would have preferred to see you disciplined for your disobedience, we must all strive to put such personal feelings aside for the good of our great company.’

Again, his bluntness took Leila by surprise. She had always assumed there were ulterior motives behind her superiors’ decisions, but hearing the truth direct from the source...

‘Do your worst,’ she spat, stepping forward and getting in the man’s face. She knew she was going too far; she could see people look her way, unable to hear her words, but clearly able to read her body language. She needed to stop, but couldn’t.

‘One day that mouth of yours will get you in serious trouble,’ the balding man continued, his eyes narrowing, but his tone infuriatingly calm. ‘But until that happy day arrives, I must content myself with punishing your “friend”, instead.’

Already reeling from the unmistakable pleasure in the man’s tone when he imagined her in trouble, Graytor’s words caught Leila completely off guard. ‘My friend?’ she breathed, taking a step back. What had this man done to Bastion?

There was a gleam in the man’s eyes, and a shift of his mouth into something close to a smile; it wasn’t much, but it was enough to set Leila’s nerves jangling. ‘Your “saviour”, of course,’ Graytor said, deliberately, ‘the boy called Zach Lang.’

Within Leila there was a brief spark of joy as she realised she could now put a name to the face, and then dread extinguished all such light. ‘What do you mean?’ She took another step back, suddenly afraid to be near this man. ‘Why would he be punished?’

The man’s head cocked to one side as if he were wondering whether he should dignify her with a response, but Graytor’s desire to see her reaction seemed to win out. ‘The boy was detained for a number of contractual breaches, the most grievous of which was impersonating a security officer.’

Leila shook her head. ‘But he was security...’ she said, her voice trailing to silence as she realised that without her EyeWare there had been only the boy’s word to go on. He had seemed so big; there had been no reason to doubt.

Leila’s mind raced back over the events of that day, realigning them with this new information, but Graytor didn’t give her time to dwell. ‘Mr Lang said to you, “it’s okay, I’m a security officer,” did he not? And yet he was a student, nothing more.’

He was a student, like me? Leila thought, but while Graytor used that fact against her Terraco saviour, Leila now saw the boy’s actions as even more amazing. He hadn’t been an officer, well versed in dangerous situations; his actions had been truly selfless.  ‘He must have said that to try and comfort me...’ Leila muttered.

Again, the man gave his thin-armed shrug. ‘Probably,’ he said, in the tone of someone growing tired with the conversation, ‘but that doesn’t undo his transgression.’

Leila opened her mouth to argue in the boy’s defence, but one look at Graytor’s face told her it was useless. A man, such as this, followed only the letter of the contracts and was probably incapable of understanding the concept of extenuating circumstances. So instead, Leila asked, ‘what did you do to him?’ unsure whether she wanted to hear his answer.

The last time she had seen Zach, his rigid body was being thrown into the back of a security vehicle. Leila had tried to explain the situation then, too, but like this man the officers had been incapable of individual thought, and their orders had been clear: detain any unauthorised personnel at the school.

Graytor sighed as if growing bored with the conversation, but she sensed from him a perverse pleasure at the distress he was causing. ‘Given the option, I would have seen the boy fired, and his company fined,’ the man said without feeling, ‘but Terraco is aiding us in our investigation and that would have been considered... undiplomatic.’

‘Then what?’ Leila asked, her voice rising in desperation now.

‘I settled for sanctions against the boy,’ the man said, simply. ‘Enough that Mr Lang’s career will have been permanently crippled before it can begin.’

Career might not be all that important to Leila, but she thought back over her brief time with the serious boy, and it was clear he loved his role and his company. ‘That’s terrible,’ she muttered, feeling sick enough that her legs felt unsteady.

The man watched her horrified expression, and showed no emotion of his own. ‘He is just one person, Terraco will quickly recover,’ the man stated, with a touch of feigned concern in his voice, as if Terraco might be the thing that Leila was most worried about.

This man’s behaviour went far beyond simple stoogery, Leila realised in that moment; he enjoyed watching her squirm, just as he had probably enjoyed hurting Zach. Leila shook her head and let it drop until she was staring at the man’s well-polished shoes.

‘Oh, don’t be so sad for the young Terrier,’ the man was saying above her, though she was barely listening. ‘It’ll take him ten years or so, but he’ll make up the lost ground eventually. He’s a hard worker and a loyal employee... unlike some I could name.’

His veiled words - aimed at her - pulled Leila away from her grim thoughts. ‘Sorry?’ she muttered, glancing up at the man and trying to get a read on his blank expression.

There was something new there, a dangerous edge that hadn’t been present a moment before. The direction of the man’s gaze was slightly off, not quite meeting her own, and for a second Leila thought he was unable to look her in the eye. But no, that wasn’t it, for this man seemed incapable of feeling guilt.

There was something more significant to his stare, but it took Leila a moment more to realise that Graytor was staring at her visor. Not my visor, Leila reminded herself, and the discomfort she was feeling turned into a sudden stab of fear. Did he know?

Surely not, or this man would already have had her detained. Yet there was no denying the direction of his stare and his thin face was growing harder by the second, so that he looked almost like one of the marble statues in the room’s centre.

‘Don’t think your recent rebellious behaviour has gone unnoticed,’ the man said, his voice dropping so low that Leila had to bend in to hear him.

Did he mean her talks with Bastion, or was he referring to her use of the hacked visor? Leila couldn’t be sure. ‘I- I’ve done nothing wrong,’ she stammered, ice running down her neck.

‘So you seem to believe,’ Graytor said, with a mirthless chuckle. ‘And on the day you find yourself sat across from me in an inquiry room, I look forward to hearing your excuses.’ Again the man’s gaze slid deliberately to her EyeWare, his meaning now clear.

Waves of alternating hot and cold flowed through Leila; there was no doubt in her mind now, this man knew about the visor, and nothing good could come from that fact.

‘Trust me, unlike your Terraco friend you will not be shown leniency,’ the man stated, with quiet certainty. ‘The full might of R-Tech will descend upon you, and you will be wiped from this world; your existence nothing more than a footnote in your parents’ records.’

At the sight of Leila visibly shaking, a smile spread across the man’s thin lips in his first demonstration of genuine enjoyment. It did nothing to lighten the man’s face, however, making him appear somehow even more distant, his grin like that of a frozen corpse.

‘Enjoy the time remaining to you in this world, Ms Skye,’ he said, companionably, as if bringing a meeting to a close, ‘for I have no doubt it is coming to an end.’

And with that, the man spun away, and made for the door, leaving a dumb-struck Leila staring after him, her teeth chattering with fear.