He found Malky staring vaguely into space, his arms folded over his stomach so that his checked shirt was rucked up over his pale rotund belly, exposing the elaborate design on his cowboy belt buckle. This buckle was something that Malky treasured and one of the bioware dealer's favourite stories revolved around his first and last visit to Los Angeles, only days before that city abruptly ceased to exist. Small and round, with his thinning blond hair brushed into an untidy side-parting, Malky was hardly the image of a frontiersman.

He raised his eyebrows as Kendrick sat down beside him. Malky smiled. "Well, I was beginning to think you'd gone home."

"Please, Malky, I feel bad. Really bad." He'd surely only imagined that his heart had stopped beating. A ridiculous notion: if it had, he'd be dead. He subconsciously reached up again and touched fingers delicately to his chest. Malky again raised his eyebrows questioningly, and Kendrick shook his head.

"Don't ask." He ducked his head a little, resting his elbows on the table top, briefly massaging his temples with his fingertips. He glanced back up at Malky and managed a faint grin. "I think I'm starting to hallucinate."

Malky sat up a little straighter, and Kendrick was pleased to see a look of genuine concern sweep over the little man's face. "What happened? Have you had another seizure?"

"Yeah – now I'm seeing ghosts." Kendrick leaned his head back against the nicotine-stained wallpaper and shrugged amiably, as if to say that it really wasn't any big deal.

Malky looked even more alarmed. "You need to see Hardenbrooke now. This is serious."

"It's not like I'm in the final stages or anything," he replied. "Look." Kendrick pulled down the collar of his T-shirt and leaned closer, eyeing the people around them. But nobody was looking.

The lines and ridges marking the flesh over his ribcage were visible, but only barely. There was no sign of the overwhelming striation that indicated a Labrat in the final, terminal stages of rogue augmentation growth. "Okay? So take it easy."