Chapter 1:

Wolfgang had been driving for exactly three hours and thirty-seven minutes when his left hand started to shake uncontrollably. At three hours and thirty-nine minutes the right one started too. At three hours and forty minutes he was hastily pulling over the large rental van to puke his guts out on the side of the road.

The pain, exhaustion, relief and fear of seven other people felt like a baseball bat to the back of his head. The steady throbbing behind his eyes reminded him that he had not had anything to drink in over five hours. The persistent black stains from the blood he had washed off his shoes... Wolfgang retched again. Fuck.

Hands still shaking, he returned to the driver's seat of the van. Felix was passed out in the back. He had woken for a few moments when Wolfgang came to pick him up. Long enough to have a smug smile on his lips at being addressed as Herr Conan, and long enough to have it vanish instantly once he saw the look in Wolfgang's eyes. Escape had been easy; the bribed nurse passed Felix out the back entrance, still in a gurney, a clear plastic sack of medication tucked under his blankets. Wolfgang, face and hair damp from the vigorous scrubbing he had given it had handed the nurse another envelope of money and took the fastest route out of Berlin.

He was still in the city when Will called him to Iceland. Given how his day had turned out, he did not even blink at the idea of driving the ambulance into a helicopter. He did, however, flinch as he left Will's body. Flinched because he had felt, like the prick of a needle or something sharp and unexpected underfoot, an alien mind. Not us, some primal part of him had whispered, not us. He had withdrawn, recoiling reflexively and swerving slightly into the other lane of traffic before he came to himself. After that he did all in his power to remain in his own mind, reciting scraps of Felix's favourite movies and even singing out loud to the radio as the pain from Riley and Will filled his mind. He could not focus on them, just as he could not focus on the bone deep ache in his forearms from the kickback on the handgun he had emptied into his uncle's face. Just as he must ignore the image of brains and blood spattering onto Sergi's sweater that insisted on playing over and over in is mind.

He only let himself wander once more, stopped at a red light over 200km from Berlin, when he felt, like the tingling static of moving a limb that had fallen asleep, Will rise briefly to consciousness. And there for the first time, bobbing up and down on a little fishing boat, he saw all seven of his other selves. Felt the protective, steely determination from Sun, Nomi and Riley, the damned eternal optimism of Capheus, echoed the selfish relief and fear from Lito that Thank God that was not him lying there, and the roiling mess of feeling from Kala. Kala, who he understood most. Kala, who he dared not think of lest he find the disgust he felt for himself mirrored in her warm dark eyes. For a careful count of ten he had allowed himself to just look at her, sunlight caught up in her dark hair, perched on the side of the rocking boat. Imagined he could touch her, really touch her, smell the light floral perfume she wore and the aroma of spices from her father's cooking that clung to her skin.

Then he was back, the light was green, the sun was going down and a light sprinkle of rain was collecting on the windshield.

The drizzle had stopped now. He rolled down a window and pulled out a cigarette. His right hand was still shaking so badly he could not get the lighter to work. Wolfgang tried counting to ten again. A hand that was his and not his steadied his grip.

"Smoking is terrible for your health." said Nomi in prim voice that was only half teasing.

Wolfgang grimaced and took a drag, "I think there are other, more immediate risks to my health."

"Yes, about that," replied Nomi "Wolfgang Bogdanow, and his friend Felix Brenner, who was legally checked out of hospital early this morning..." Nomi arched a coy eyebrow. "...to be transferred by land to a private care with a highly trained team of nurses, are in Switzerland. During the...er... events at your uncle's house you boarded a packed plane to Zurich where you rented a lovely little cottage in the countryside and a car. You also bought a week's worth of groceries on your credit card."

Wolfgang exhaled slowly. "I did have a plan, you know."

"Of course, I know. I am you, remember?" Nomi, turned her head distracted, and abruptly he was sitting beside her at the kitchen table in San Francisco, her pretty girlfriend, Amanita he recalled, leaning over the two of them.

"Is it the broody German one?"

"Yes." replied Nomi.

"Broody German one?" repeated Wolfgang incredulity swelling in his chest and threatening to burst out as a hysterical laugh. Nomi did laugh, albeit a bit shakily.

"Yeah, Neets has made up code names for all of you, Lito is 'that smooth Mexican fella' Sun is 'boss ass business bitch', Kala is..."

"- I need get back to driving," interrupted Wolfgang. "Thank you for your help, but I don't –"

"- I am giving you a choice Wolfgang." Said Nomi, interrupting him this time. "I know that you intended to flee Germany as a criminal. Live low for a few years until you could be sure of no retribution. I am giving you the chance to live as an innocent man. The alibi is solid; the cottage in Switzerland is waiting for you. I have generated enough evidence to keep the authorities and otherwise away. You will be able to return to Berlin, make an honest living." She paused. "One you can be proud of."

And why would I want to do that? He almost asked, but they both knew the answer to that. Because fight it as he might, the thought dogged him: while Kala's parents might not like the sound of Wolfgang Bogdanow, German locksmith, it was a hell of a lot better than Wolfgang Bogdanow, diamond thief and mass murderer, on the run from justice. Of course, neither sounded as good as Rajan Rasel, of Rasel Pharmaceuticals. His right hand began to shake again.

Nomi eyed it gently, "You are going into shock."

Wolfgang resolutely clenched his jaw and put the keys into the van's ignition, tossing the cigarette stub out the van window. Nomi reached for his hand once more, and the kindness in her eyes told him she knew exactly what he had been thinking. For a moment he truly hated her for that.

Softly she said. "She is much too smart, and likes you far too much you to do what you tell her. But we both know how important her family is to her. Its not too late."

Wolfgang looked at their hands; hers soft and freckled, his darker and with somebody's blood still crusted under the nails. They both shuddered with the revulsion he felt at that.

" You did what you had to do, there is no wrong in that."

"I know," said Wolfgang shortly. "Do you think, I don't know that? He deserved it, they all did. My family, they worked for the worst kind of criminals and committed the worst kind of crimes. The world is better without them in it." He paused. "But, I am still here, and I am no better than they were."

Nomi's grip tightened on his hand. "To commit violence against yourself is to commit it against all of us."

"I know," Wolfgang repeated, paused, and rolled his aching shoulders. He was silent for a moment, thinking, before letting out a defeated sigh. "Felix loves Berlin, he was the main reason I never left, despite my family. It would be hard on him, if we could not return."

He fixed Nomi with a grim look. "If your alibi is as good as you say it is, I would do this for him, and I don't want to talk about Kala any more."

Nomi breathed a quiet sigh of relief and nodded. "I booked the cottage using your email, the address should be there. It is only about four more hours. A nurse is waiting there, she is a friend of mine, and she will corroborate your story."

Wolfgang nodded, a racking tremor shook him and he suddenly became aware that he was freezing. "I don't know if I can drive there tonight," he admitted.

Nomi hesitated for a second, before Wolfgang felt the warm Nairobi air on his skin and felt Capheus slowly take over his body.

"Rest brother," he said. "I can take you the rest of the way." And with firm hands on the wheel he pulled back onto the road.

It was nearly midnight when they arrived, but true to Nomi's word the nurse was waiting in inside cottage number sixteen. It was her capable hands that lifted Felix out of the gurney and into a bed in a small brightly lit room, her hair a violet shade that matched the bouquet of flowers sitting by the windowsill. Vaguely, Wolfgang wondered how she knew Nomi, and faintly he heard in the back of his head, something that sounded like "Hack-tivist community" and "not the only one with a criminal past".

Exhausted, and assured by the nurse that Felix was fine. Wolfgang tottered into the bedroom down the hall from Felix's and collapsed, shoes and all into a soft white duvet.

The nurse's name was Julia and she was an American. Wolfgang knew this, because when he woke up nine and a half hours later to sunlight and persistent birdsong, he heard her talking to Felix and Felix slowly but coherently replying.

Drowsily rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he meandered down the hall to Felix's room. He was about to push the door open, when the tones of Felix's voice made him reconsider, and turn, smiling slightly, into the bathroom instead. Typical Felix - barely escaped his deathbed and already flirting with the staff.

The bathroom, like the rest of the house was painted a clean white colour that leant the place an almost beachside feel and it had -bless Nomi's heart - thought Wolfgang grudgingly, a very large bathtub.

He unpacked his toiletries and Felix's as the bathtub filled, partially keeping up appearances, partially because he liked things to be neat. The medications for Felix filled up an entire shelf of the cabinet behind the mirror and Wolfgang was forced to swallow hard against the lump in his throat.

Sliding into the blissfully warm water, Wolfgang forced his thoughts away from Felix and his uncle. The absence of Will was unbalancing, like trying to listen to music with water in one ear. Riley was still on Sven's boat, heading to the long way back to London. Capheus was driving the Van Damn into Nairobi. Lito was smoking a cigarette on his balcony, and Nomi was getting ready for bed, kissing her way down Aminita's neck, arching her back as her girlfriend's hands slid down her hips, he could feel her phantom fingers slide past his navel... Wolfgang violently plunged his head underwater. Sex as a rule didn't bother him - not even being a telepathic quasi-voyeur to sex that was happening on the other side of the world - what did bother him was the lust that was his and not his beginning to pool below his gut, quickening his breath. Lust that would not be directed at Aminita, but made him reach out without thinking to Kala.

He had not quite figured out how to control his visits to her, and while her reaction to him showing up at her lab bench, dripping wet and aroused would be amusing, the playful warmth between them had been tainted by his actions. You knew this would happen, whispered part of him, what was for him, a sunlit, pastel coloured, fantasy was for her simply reality. A reality his darkness had no place in.

So he focused instead on the sound of Felix and Julia's distant conversation, the musical clank of water lapping the walls of the tub and the soft pop of bubbles escaping his mouth, until the growling in his stomach reminded him that he had not eaten for almost a day and a half.

The soap had a rather pervasive flowery scent to it, as did the lotion but Wolfgang used both, scrubbing it into his skin to remove the scent of ashes and gunpowder that clung to it.

Felix's door was still closed when he exited the bathroom, so he set off to the kitchen in search of breakfast. Felix loved omelets. Felix also could not cook for shit. Wolfgang had often woken, viciously hungover and sore from sleeping in his customary place on Felix's couch, to the sound of the fire alarm and a plume of smoke spreading from the kitchen. Felix irritatingly bright eyed (he was one of those people that always woke up early after a night of drinking) assuring him that, really, really this was all intentional and that the key to good cooking was a sense of adventure. Wolfgang could cook 4 things: eggs – scrambled or not at all, toast, instant ramen noodles and a very specific recipe for Knödel that his mother had taught him before she died.

Eggs would seem to be the order of the day. After fishing the carton out of the refrigerator full of groceries 'he' had bought, he was just cracking the eggs into a bowl when Sun appeared next to him.

" You should add green onions, and cheese."

Wolfgang, checked to make sure Julia and Felix were not in the room, before snorting softly, and replying, "Since when are you an expert on scrambled eggs?" It was nighttime in Seoul; she was still in solitary, the smell of heating oil filling the small cell.

" I like to cook," Sun's lips tightened. "My father never let me, and I was too young when my mother died to learn. Once I moved out it was a good way to unwind from my day."

He had a fleeting mental image of vegetables cooking in sauce and a bright-eyed puppy at her feet, drooling slightly; pink tongue flopped to one side, the radio playing some pop song.

"Eggs for breakfast is a Western thing of course," said Sun, briskly opening the fridge. "But I would take out some of Father's American clients when they came for Seoul and they would always want eggs."

Wolfgang stood back and watched as she grated cheese with smooth, practiced strokes. The pain the thought of family evoked in the two of them was a little too sharp, so she continued speaking, " After eating at all these Western restaurants, I started to get a taste for breakfast food, I can make an excellent omelet –"

" I will have to introduce you to Felix." Interjected Wolfgang.

Sun rolled her eyes, and continued " – Koreans don't really have food that is only meant to be had for breakfast, it is either leftovers from the night before or from whatever restaurant is open in the morning." She added a little water to the eggs and cheese (makes them fluffier apparently) and poured the mixture into the pan with a comforting sizzle.

" What do Germans eat for breakfast?"

"Sausages" said Wolfgang promptly, before snickering at Sun's skeptically raised eyebrow. "I mostly eat cereal."

A comfortable silence fell between them, as Sun chopped and sprinkled some green onions into the pan and he fiddled with the coffee machine. Of the cluster, Sun and him were likely the most comfortable with silence. He used to the concentrated quiet of lock picking, and she to the sort of the air-conditioned isolation that can only be found on the top floors of corporate buildings.

He could not help but think of Kala then, and her noisy colourful world. The press of millions of voices constant, the honking kamikaze vehicles on the street and the sweet strains of music drifting up to the rooftop where they had once sat. A stubborn ache settled into his chest.

"You're an idiot." Stated Sun spooning eggs on to his plate as the toaster dinged. "A misguided, paternalistic, idiot."

"What?" asked Wolfgang, startled and, although he would not admit it, slightly confused about her use of paternalistic (he was not stupid but most of his education consisted of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and safe cracking).

"Kala." Explained Sun patiently, "Who the hell do you think you are telling her to marry Rajan? That is her choice, and you don't just get to go around telling her how to live her life."

"I was trying to protect her.," protested Wolfgang.

Sun laughed derisively and handed him a steaming plate of eggs with two slices of toast on it. "None of us are protected."

Wolfgang drew in a deep breath to protest, but with a jolt their connection was broken. He turned at the sound of Felix's door opening to see Felix heavily supported by Julia, and white faced with pain, hobble across the hall to the washroom. He threw what was either a wink or a grimace in Wolfgang's direction.

Some time later, Felix was re-ensconced in bed with some sort of pink smoothie Julia had made for him (no solids – she had sternly told Felix who was eyeing up Wolfgang's eggs, and then waggled a finger at him like he was a disobedient toddler) and Wolfgang at his side, coffee in hand.

"Wolfie, I-" started Felix, unsure.

Wolfgang had just summarized for him the events of the past few days in clipped emotionless sentences. Steiner is dead. I killed him. Sergi is dead. I killed him too.

"Wolfie..."

"Don't worry about it." He said shortly, quelling the nausea that rose in him when he thought of his uncle's bashed in head. "We both knew the risks and you would have done the same for me."

Felix nodded uncertainly, and Wolfgang didn't like the way he was looking at him, a little awestruck and a little scared. He had not told him about the cluster, one big shock at a time, Wolfgang figured.

"I brought Conan." He said finally, to break the silence. He was rewarded with Felix's big dopey smile.

Julia, the American nurse with the purple hair, was sitting at the kitchen bar scrolling idly on her phone. The TV was on a British channel, a new anchor was saying things like "...Bogdanow family massacre... and suspected connection with rival Russian mobs... threatening messages sent to Sergi Bogdanow's cell phone... contacting surviving family members..."

"Was that you Nomi?" Wolfgang asked appearing in her sunlit flat long enough for her to nod. "Julia thinks that you are here because someone threatened your family and that the authorities cannot be trusted. Which-" Nomi's mouth twisted ironically, "-is more true than either of us care to think about."

"Oh, I am so sorry!" came Julia's voice; she had a soft southern accent, and gestured at the TV, before shutting it off. "I wasn't thinking, of course they would cover the story about your family."

"Its fine." said Wolfgang although he had to consciously unclench his jaw. "We were not close." Understatement of the year. "Felix is sleeping again I thought now would be a good time to talk about his treatment needs."

She nodded. "Well, the good news is your German doctors did a good job on patching him up. Likely no permanent intestinal damage, although he will need to be checked regularly to how the scar tissue grows. He will have lots of scars, although –" she threw Wolfgang a look, "-he seems to think those will add to his sex appeal. It is his lungs that worry me. The left one is OK, but the right partially collapsed. He is at risk for all sorts of respiratory illnesses and issues."

Wolfgang swallowed. "So, what should we do?"

Julia scratched the side of her nose. "Wait mostly, make sure he doesn't strain himself, hope for the best. I have a friend that works as a physiotherapist, to help him regain muscle strength once he is up to it. I will see if he can give you a discount."

"Thank you." Wolfgang inclined his head.

Julia smiled brightly back. "Any friend of Nomi's is a friend of mine! Actually, speaking of – how did you two meet?"

"Um... internet." invented Wolfgang, gesturing vaguely. Nomi and Lito snickered, somewhere in the back of his head.

She just nodded. "Me too, we were part of an online hacking community. I was actually planning on moving to San Fran for college, but my stepmom ended up getting sick so I moved here to be closer to her and my dad."

"But you are an American?"

"Yeah." She laughed. "Born and raised Arizona, but when my parents split my Dad moved to Switzerland for work – he is an accountant of course - and I stayed behind with my Mom."

Wolfgang nodded but didn't say anything. Talking about family understandably made him uncomfortable. But that didn't stop Julia who seemed to require very little encouragement to keep talking. He didn't mind so much, kept his mind off of things. It must have been an hour or so before Felix shouting that he had to piss, and could Wolfie get his lazy ass over here, ended their conversation.

"She's hot isn't she?" said Felix as Wolfgang awkwardly maneuvered him out of bed.

"I suppose, I hadn't noticed." He had. But it didn't matter because her face was all wrong and she was too pale and her hair was too short and did not stick out around her face in stubborn little curls before falling dark and glorious down her back.

"Wolfie? Wolfie you OK?" Felix was waving a hand in front of his face. "You look like someone took a piss in your beer again."

"Yeah, I am fine." Wolfgang schooled his features into a neutral expression, "You weigh as much as an elephant, must be all that working out you have been doing."

Felix snorted, as he leaned his skinny frame against Wolfgang's shoulder. "Sure, make fun of the cripple."

And for a while everything seemed good again.