Lex walked the few streets over from the store to The CodeBar. She'd told Fil to meet her there. She'd spotted it on the way and it looked like the easiest bar to get into around here. She knew this place was only a few minutes around the corner from his apartment.

There were kids in costume everywhere. The street was dotted with clubs and bars catering to various differing tastes and clubbers spilled out into the street, congregating to smoke or just to stand around talking.

As she approached the bar – the name of the venue picked out in blue neon over the door, the words entangled in a huge, garish double helix design – a group of girls dressed as zombie cheerleaders split and moved past her, dancing, high-kicking, chanting and waving blood-stained pompoms in each other's faces. A couple of kids sitting around on their motorcycles outside the auto repair shop cheered raucously and tried to spray the nearer ones with beer. She quickened her pace, trying to avoid getting showered with discount booze.

She'd left the cloaking device and most of her weapons back at the shuttle. She hated having to leave the dah'kte behind but they were just too noticeable and she did not want to get arrested. She only had her two knives stuck in her boot tops and the plasma cannon. It was small and lightweight enough to fit in her pocket without making a bulge in the material. The satcom was strapped to her wrist under her jacket. She just hoped she wouldn't get searched.

On her way in she flipped the skull mask up and gave the man on door security her warmest smile. He waved her through without even patting her pockets.


Scar managed to catch up with Lex just as she walked out of the brightly lit human building. He'd had to change vehicles twice, but finally one had brought him near enough to her position for him to be able to catch her using the rooftops. Now he'd finally got her in his eyeline. She ducked round the corner and emerged from the shadows wearing a white mask. She still wore the strange false hair but he knew it was her. He felt he could have picked her out of a thousand other humans just from the way she moved.

He followed her unseen as she wound through the brightly lit night-time streets, keeping up high so that he would stand less chance of being noticed – by her or anyone else. This place seemed to be unusually crowded. From atop the roof he watched as she threaded her way purposefully in between the throngs of milling humans, a sleek predatory shape slinking through a herd of slow, ambling prey.

He wondered briefly why they were all here, some sort of social event perhaps? None of them seemed especially alert although the fact that there were so many of them might make things more difficult if he had to intervene. Not that he had any doubt he could carve his way through this gathering easily enough if it came to a fight. The main problem was that he would certainly draw attention to himself and Lex had been very clear that she wanted to avoid that.

He was hoping that this other human – this Fil – would meet her outside so he could get a good look at him under the bright, artificial lighting. He wanted to see this 'friend' of hers for himself. Not so that he could attack him, not right now anyway.

For once possessive jealousy formed only a tiny part of his motivation, it was still there alright, lurking in the background, but mainly he was preoccupied by two objectives. The first was to protect her, to save her from herself if necessary. He knew she would be angered by this when she discovered what he was doing but he'd have to trust that her rational side and her allegiance to him would win her over in the end. His other objective… "Well," He thought "She is going to like that even less but her rage will not deter me from doing what needs to be done."

He was disappointed when no other human approached her but instead she turned and walked towards a squat building lit by a glowing blue sign just across from the building where he stood. Her silhouette was swallowed up by the crowd.

After she had disappeared through the darkened entrance he flipped the wristcom open with his other hand and checked the display anxiously. Selim's condition hadn't changed; he was still deeply asleep according to the medipod. With a click in the back of his throat he snapped it shut and reactivated his camouflage.


Lex pulled the mask back down to hide her face as she shouldered her way through the sweaty crush of bodies inside. She didn't look out of place here, if anything she was rather conservatively dressed. Many people here seemed to have made a big effort for Halloween; some were dressed like strippers or dominatrices or S&M vampires or even playboy bunnies. As well as the elaborate hair and makeup there was an awful lot of flesh on display, spilling out of corsets, or barely concealed under skin-tight PVC, leather or rubber. Lex wondered when Halloween had become so raunchy. She also wondered, given the clientele of the club, how many of the customers dressed like this all the time anyway.

On a stage at the far end of a room a rock band were midway through their set, one of them seemed to be playing his guitar with an angle grinder. Showers of sparks rained down over him and onto the stage; everywhere around her people were drinking and shouting to be heard over the screech and howl of the guitars.

Lex had never been a big fan of nightclubs. She found them noisy, smelly, sticky and she'd never been much of a drinker. Adrenalin had always been her drug of choice. She could just imagine Scar's reaction if she had asked him to come here; the baleful glare, the single mandible curled up in disgust, the tones of blistering disdain "Why have you brought me to this filthy, soft-meat spawning place?"

Suddenly she wished fervently that he was here, watching her back. Her hand moved across unconsciously to the wrist com, she could contact him now, tell him to come. As quickly as the thought bubbled up she squashed it. What about Selim?

And in any case, did she really want this party to turn into a massacre? All these people innocently enjoying themselves, meaning no harm, just trying to have a good time. She knew that to her monstrous partner in crime they would just be so much dead meat. "The soft meat" – thathorrible name his species had for hers. She found it disgusting, hated when he said it even as a joke. It sounded unpleasantly carnal and suggestive. It also made humanity into one big homogenous lump of organic matter; easily disposable, barely discernible from one another, there to be used for whatever purpose the yautja decided. She supposed that was how they mostly saw humans.

"I imagine he still feels that way about humanity as a whole even if he doesn't about me. She thought "I don't kid myself I've changed him that much!"

She looked around the place trying to see if she could see Fil anywhere, she didn't know if she'd be able to recognise him. She pulled the phone out of her pocket, he had texted her.

I've got a table in the upstairs bar

He'd got here before her; he must live close by. She was surprised and slightly apprehensive. Looking around suspiciously she climbed the metal, industrial-look stairs. The upstairs was not so much another room, more of a mezzanine level – you could still see and hear the dance floor and the band but without having to be in the sweaty moshpit of the downstairs bar. She looked around and after a moment saw a man sitting alone at one of the black leather banquettes. This was unusual in itself as all of the other booths were occupied by laughing groups of people. She stood packed in at the bar amongst the other people trying to get served and peered at him in the huge, condensation-smeared mirror behind the bottles and optics. She bought herself a beer, more for the look of the thing than because she actually wanted one, then she turned and looked at the man properly. He was distracted, fiddling with his mobile phone. It looked like him, he was alone and now she noticed he had a laptop bag next to him on the seat. His sandy-blonde spikey hair, glasses and goatee beard were the same, had been the same ever since they had been at college. They'd always joked that he looked like a punk version of Bill Gates. It had to be him.

Sipping the rather watery beer, she strolled casually in his direction. As she got closer, a lot of her worry vanished in a flush of relief and real pleasure at seeing him. It was the first time she'd seen any human being that she knew from her old life since before she'd left for Antarctica.

As she got closer, she was dismayed to notice that he looked too thin, haggard in fact. He'd always been small and slight in build but now his skin had a papery texture and a sallow tinge and his hair was going prematurely grey. He had an electronic cigarette clutched in his fidgety grasp. She doubted it was a quitting aid; Fil had always been an unrepentant smoker.

"Fil?"

He looked up, as if mildly surprised to find her standing there "Angel?"

"Can I sit here?" She pulled up the garish mask so that he could see her face.

"It's a free country." He gestured with one hand, whilst taking a deep, nervous pull on the e-cigarette with the other.

They looked at each other for a few beats; then both of their faces broke into beaming smiles. He leapt to his feet and they threw their arms around each other.

"I thought you were fucking dead!" Fil said next to her ear.

"You've nearly been right more than once!"

They pulled back and she had a chance to look at him properly. His eyes were still the same, clear hazel-green, but the face that they looked out of seemed to have done more than six years of ageing in the time she'd been away.

He gave her a huge cheesy grin as he sat down opposite her "You still look like a fucking supermodel."

"Thanks." She smiled "You look like shit."

He laughed and took a nervous pull on the cigarette "Yeah well… thanks! I've been ill."

They looked at each other again for a few moments.

"Angel, I can't believe it's really you!" He said "I tried to find out what happened to you. First they said you were missing presumed dead, then when it came on the news I phoned that girl at the foundation – your PA – Marcie? Marsha?"

"What?" She said, puzzled.

" – I felt like the world had gone crazy! I mean – "

"Wait, wait!" She held up a hand "You saw what on the news?"

"About the foundation," He said, then stopped he saw her expression "What… you didn't know?"

"Didn't know what?" The words came out like razor blades, sharper than she intended "What's happened at the foundation? Is something wrong?"

"Angel… you must know…" He said, incredulous "They closed down. They had to after the police put out the warrant for your arrest."

The noise in the room suddenly went quiet, as if she'd been plunged under water. She'd been meaning to cut right to the chase, to ask him straight out for the information they needed, but his news threw her into a storm of confusion and guilt. In truth she had seldom thought about the organisation in the last six years, and even when she did, it was only to idly wonder how they were getting on without her.

She'd never dreamed for one moment that in her absence things would fall apart.


It didn't take Scar very long to find a way into the building. He scaled up onto the roof, finding a rusted door into the place that clearly hadn't been used for some time. He slammed his shoulder against it and the corroded metal gave with barely a groan of protest. Down a cramped dark staircase until he found himself in a cavern full of flashing, strobing lights and skeletal metal shapes. Up on the roof the noise coming from the interior had just been a constant, rhythmic pulse, but down here it was an echoing wall of discord that made every cell in his body resonate. When he looked down he saw that the narrow gantry he was standing on swayed over a mass of sweaty, undulating humanity.

"So many of them all packed into such a small space." He thought, almost hypnotised by the roiling movement of the crowd in the same way a cat becomes transfixed when it sees a scurrying shape "What are they doing, fighting… or fucking? They are like kainde amedhe trying to climb over one another in a pit! "

He briefly scanned the sticky mass to see if she was amongst them, but he was unsurprised to see that she wasn't. That was not her way, to be jostled and crowded by the flock. Besides she and this 'friend' had come here to talk.

He prowled along the walkway, away from the noise and flashing illuminations. Here at the darker, quieter end of the cavern, there was a slightly raised floor. The gantry hung partly over it and he followed it along. Underneath him, there were parties of humans seated here, shouting and drinking. He saw her right away. She and a male human were sitting together, just the two of them. The platform he stood on hung just a few feet above their heads. He took a long, hard look – scrutinising this friend of hers. "He looks small, malnourished and weak," He thought scornfully "Infiltrator? He should try his hand at some real infiltration. I doubt he would get far!"

Satisfied that her companion presented no serious competition he turned his attention to the humans around them, watching for any movement that seemed unnatural or out of place. He was so sure that this had to be a trap that he was becoming edgy, irritable. This place was getting to him; all this noise, these humans in close proximity – all this soft meat – it made his blades thirsty. It would be so much simpler to just abandon all pretence of concealment, to leap down amongst these unsuspecting creatures and seize her. He could hack a bloody path through them and drag her back to the Chameleon, no matter how much she bit and fought and cursed his name. This he knew how to do; this he understood. Not to mention the pure, unadulterated joy of killing. "Now that would be fun!" He repressed the urge and made himself focus. He was not here for sport.

It was difficult to make out her expression at this distance but her body language was distracted, unaware. How could she not be totally concentrated on what she needed to do? He growled softly "I knew all along it was a bad idea for her to meet this phantasm from her former life. It has unbalanced her."

He understood how it worked – understood it better than her – because he had lived through it. She was trying to make her new life coexist with her old. She wanted to come back and step into her past; tread those old trails, see familiar faces, but he knew she wouldn't be able to do both. He had been doing the same when he had stupidly taken her back to the clan. Their short and ill-fated stay on board the Void Cutter had nearly shattered his mind into a million pieces and killed them both. He had tried to sustain his former life but in the end he realised he had to choose; either he could keep her and Selim or he could go on being who he had been.

He had made his choice.

She would soon come to the same realisation; her old self had to die.

Impatiently he studied the other humans around her, all the while the uneasy feeling pulled at him, telling him he should be back at the Chameleon with Selim.

He watched. There were a few humans here who seemed to be taking an unusual amount of interest in his female and her 'friend'.


Lex stared at Fil in horror "They closed down?" She whispered.

"Well not right away, but in the end they didn't really have a choice – the publicity was so bad. They couldn't keep going when one of their board of trustees is a wanted terrorist!" He dropped his voice down low at the end of this sentence.

"You know about that?" She said, quietly.

"I mean Lex you were, like, their poster girl! It totally ruined their image…" He trailed off as he saw her genuine shock "Wait, I mean… wait, how can you not know all this?"

"I …just… I've been away…"

He laughed in disbelief and took another long drag "Lex, it was all over the news! Your picture was everywhere. Where the hell did you go that you didn't even hear about it for five - six years?"

He watched her for a few moments, waiting for her to answer him whilst she sat there dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. She couldn't believe that everything she'd worked so hard to achieve for most of her life had just gone, disintegrated and crumbled away. Illogically she'd always imagined that no matter how much she'd changed everything back on Earth would stay exactly the same; preserved in amber forever. Part of her just wanted to tell him everything, unburden herself. Three times she opened her mouth but shut it again, something restraining her.

"Fil, I can't tell you. I wish I could, but I can't." She took a deep breath "I came here because I really need you to help me find this woman."

"Yeah you said. Why do you need to find her so badly?"

"I can't tell you that either. She used to work for the government, maybe still does. She's a scientist. She used to work at a secure government facility in the Nevada desert about five years ago. Now, I don't know where she is, but I need to find her."

"Mmmn, you said on the phone," He chewed one fingernail, looking down at the table "Is that the one you broke into?"

"Not exactly," She was a little surprised he knew but told herself she shouldn't be. Of course he'd read her 'Most Wanted' page, she had been stupid to think he wouldn't "I was there," She said eventually "But it wasn't the way they made it sound. I was trying to escape …"

"Escape?" He looked uneasy "Lex, what have you gotten mixed up in? What is it you want from this woman?"

"I can't tell you that either, but Fil …" She leaned across the table and looked him deep in the eyes, her fear and desperation laid bare in her expression "I have to find her. It's life or death to me." She said simply.

He squirmed under her gaze. She couldn't tell whether it was the naked misery in her face making him uncomfortable or something else. Whatever it was, it made a tingle run all through her. Something felt… wrong.

"I'll… I'll do what I can Angel." He said falteringly.

She tried to smile but it felt as grisly a rictus as the plastic mask. All her senses had gone onto high alert; the music was suddenly grating, conversations around them sounded false, braying voices too loud. Abruptly she realised that she'd been so pleased to see him that she had let her guard down, she hadn't been paying attention to her surroundings at all. And she'd left her mask off – the clan blood mark was visible!

Goosepimples were popping out all over her flesh. Her hand crept into her sleeve and got a grip on one of her knives. Under cover of taking another sip of the horrible beer she surveyed the room. Two women laughing together over something looked at her just a little too long; eyes bright and inquisitive, a large blonde man at the bar seemed to look away just as she glanced up.

She shook her head "I'm just being nuts." She thought "The pressure's getting to me. How would anybody know to look for me here?"

Then a voice behind her said "Alexa Woods?"