The park was a cemetery. Not the gothic statues-and-ivy kind, but a bleak modern place with row upon row of oblong headstones, some with a little garden of green glass chippings before them, others surrounded only by mown grass.
"There's nowhere here," Leo said. "No cover."
"The chapel," said Mattie. "Of rest, whatever you call it." She pointed to a small, steep-gabled building at the centre of the vast space.
"It'll be too well locked," Leo said. "Aha. But that won't be."
He led the way to a flat-roofed brick building which was screened by leylandii.
"If that's the loos you can forget it," said Mattie.
Leo tried the door handle. "Locked and padlocked." He made a circuit of the building, looking up. "Here we go."
"How did you know that," Mattie asked after they had crawled in through an unlocked skylight. They didn't dare switch on a light, so were exploring by the light of Mattie's phone.
Leo shrugged. "There's always a weak point in any security system."
She sighed.
"Am I quoting him again? Not trying to."
She bit her lip. Leo/not Leo was giving her a headache. Or that might just have been guilt, the misery of having lost him. She switched on her phone and shone it around the room.
The building held gardening equipment, plus a small rest area with a couple of ripped leatherette armchairs, a sink and kettle. "Nice work if you can get it," said Leo. He sank down in the nearest chair. "Ah-" His face contorted in pain.
"Are you OK? Let me see."
"It's the thing. The port. It feels wrong, hot." He felt his ribs with shaking hands. He was sweating.
"Can I look?"
"Would he have let you look?"
"No. I don't know. In an emergency." It was weird, talking to Leo about Leo as if he wasn't right in front of her.
"Then look, I suppose."
He rested his head on the back of the chair and shut his eyes while she self consciously rolled back his t shirt. "It's ok," she said. "Needs cleaning up. I think you tore it out when Hobb's men came for Fred. Lucky you did or they'd have seen straight away who you are. -There's probably got a first aid kit here..."
"Now who's fearless," he said while she applied stinging antiseptic, gauze and a large dressing. "I can't even look at it."
She shrugged, and connected him to a charging point. "It's just part of you. Makes you unique."
"Huh. That and having no sodding clue what's going on."
"I'll make us a drink," said Mattie. She poked about by the light of her phone, looking for mugs which might not give them salmonella.
"Don't open the fridge," said Leo. "It will create too much light."
"He's cautious too."
"Not tonight, apparently. Apparently tonight he thought he would try to be invincible, and instead he's deleted himself." Leo's dark sarcasm.
"I thought I could fix it," Mattie said, facing the kettle. "Fix his mistake. I was convinced I was going to rock up and be a superhero."
Leo didn't answer, but when she brought him a mug of black Nescafe he said, "You saved his life. My life."
She shook her head. His life was his mind, and that seemed very un-saved.
"Come on," said Leo. "You drove a hundred miles with a secret backup, and did the hacker equivalent of dragging him from a burning building. That's got to be worth a few brownie points."
She tried and failed to smile.
Leo tilted his head up at her as she perched on the arm of the other chair. "The real question is, how the hell does such a loser know someone like you?"
"He's not a loser. He's brilliant. He's just not had much choice in life."
Leo shook his head. "And the mystery remains."
He was becoming very strange. "I want to try to remount your memories," Mattie said. "You're at full charge now."
"Don't synths take hours to charge up?"
"You're not a synth. Your get your physical energy from food."
"Ok. So. Remounting. What about it?" He sipped coffee. "I'd prefer not to be knocked out this time, if possible."
"I might have to root you," she said.
"Like a phone," said Leo.
"Like a phone."
He swallowed. But memories or not, he had always been interested in how things worked. "Tell me. Tell me in detail."
"You won't understand the code."
"No, but according to you I am a genius. So I should be able to follow."