"Wait," the doctor says. "There is an option. Lodafril. It's not patented. I don't have to tell you what that means." He watches me carefully for a reaction. I don't blame him. Offer black makt meds to the wrong person and you'd end up in a labour camp, even if you're a Citizen.

"Does it have a chance of working?" I ask. He pauses for a moment then nods. "Then I want it."

He taps his console and my phone buzzes. I look at the screen of my phone. It displays an access card with the name KADEN on it. "It's a username for a game" he says.

He gives me directions to the Kraal, a bar on the outskirts of Salt River, making me repeat them to make sure I have them. "Ask to use the White Room," he says as he leads me to the door. I nod, but he catches my eye. "It has to be the White Room. You can't reach Kaden any other way."

I exit Waterfront City and walk until I hit a Congolese internet cafe called the Rat Tunnels. The atmosphere is humid and the sounds of French and Portuguese come from businessmen engaged in video chats.

I call Matt. And not only because he was a med student before he joined the cause. He looks tense, like he's looking for a reason to disconnect.

Matt: Hey, long time, it's been five, six months? Hey, long time, it's been five, six months? Drew: Drew: Longer. Matt, I really need your help. Longer. Matt, I really need your help.

Matt: Drew, we've been over this, I can't come back, ISU'd take meout as soon as I landed. Drew, we've been over this, I can't come back, ISU'd take meout as soon as I landed.

Drew: Don't worry I wouldn't inconvenience you like that. I buriedmom and dad on my own, I wouldn't expect you to come backfor a little thing like me being sick. Don't worry I wouldn't inconvenience you like that. I buriedmom and dad on my own, I wouldn't expect you to come backfor a little thing like me being sick.

Matt: You're sick again? I thought that was under control? You're sick again? I thought that was under control? Drew: Drew: Well a lot has happened in the ten months since I last spoke toyou. Well a lot has happened in the ten months since I last spoke toyou.

Matt: Drew, please Drew, please

Drew: So right now I need your help, ok? If you do one thing in yourlife for me, make it this. So right now I need your help, ok? If you do one thing in yourlife for me, make it this.

Matt: I've always I've always

Drew: Please, just listen. You've still got contacts in medical researchright? I need you to find out about a drug called Lofadril. Please, just listen. You've still got contacts in medical researchright? I need you to find out about a drug called Lofadril.

But the moment I say the word "Lofadril" the connection cuts off. The proprietor strides across the room and looms over me.

His hands are tattooed with badly-rendered holographic ink that glitches as it shows violent s.e.xual scenes; prison tattoos.

"What you doing, eh? he asks.

"I was just chatting," I start, but he cuts me off.

"You used a banned phrase. If ISU picks it up, they're gonna disconnect me. How I'm gonna live then?"

"I just need to"

"No, you need to leave," he says.

It's not a request.

The Kraal turns out to be a grungy games arcade and strip club. One corner is dedicated to kids jacked into VR units; the slick grey pods that have become more commonplace than slot machines. Sickness and rising petrol and food prices have sent people from reality in their droves. "Your mind can hardly tell the difference," a faded sticker proclaims.

There's a screen in the corner showing a news report about the Left Hand of Allah, the Somalian jihadist group that had absorbed Yemenite and Pakistani terrorist cells after they had finally been pushed out of the Middle East.

The barman, a bearded, rough-looking Afrikaans guy, is watching it. "There's going to be a major war in Africa soon, you mark my words," he says as I walk up to the bar. "I hear they're offering heroin money to recruits."

"Heroin too," I say.

"Let's hope it makes their little child soldiers slow on the trigger," he says laughing. "Are you drinking?"

"A single Harm's Way," I say. It's the only drink I really know a cheap local whisky, an offshoot of the biofuel industry.

I down the potent liquor which burns my throat. "Games look busy," I say.

"They are, some of these kidpsychos have started setting up drips so they don't have to leave their little cytopia," he says. We watch as a kid takes off his VR mask and stands staring at the room trying to focus his eyes. "Reality must be a real bad comedown."

I can't think of a way to do it, so I just blurt it out. "I need the White Room."

The smile drops off his lips.

"Never heard of it," he says.

I show him the card on my phone. He grunts and motions for me to follow him. He leads me to a completely white room with a wireless VR unit. "20 minutes," he says.

I go through the motions of creating an avatar, choosing the Randomise b.u.t.ton to select a set of looks and skills and then hit Incarnate. Immediately I'm in a bright square, bustling with avatars.

The place has the feel of a carnival, disjointed and confusing. Lacking a plan, I make my way toward a crowd standing in the middle of the town square. They're crowding around a beautiful avatar. I feel love pour from my heart at the sight of her. I know immediately that she's a Sylb, one of the cla.s.s of specially designed avatars, a perfectly synthesized being.

"The real world is pain," she says in a silky voice. "But look around you." Her arms sweep around her causing a shower of stars to erupt from her hands. "A world created by a benevolent and giving corporation," she says. "Why would you ever want to leave?"

I'm ripped from my reverie by a punch to the kidneys. I hadn't bothered with safety settings, so the pain really hurts. I turn to see a grinning leprechaun creature with wild orange hair. "You're falling for a Corporate troll, newf.a.g," it scoffs. "That's so tacky."

I don't know what to do next, so I just say, "I'm looking for Kaden."

The thing grins. "No s.h.i.t, you're in the White Room. Come on. n.o.body else can see me." He takes my hand and we jump to a crumbling Grecian temple carved into the side of a rock face. The creature gestures for me to go inside, gives me a royal wave and then blinks out of existence.

I push the carved doors open and enter the dim temple. Huge angelic wings curl and uncurl behind an elegant naked woman that stands in the centre of temple floor.

"Another lost soul," Kaden says in a languid, silky voice.

"Not lost yet," I say, "but definitely losing".

Her wings unfurl to full stretch. I feel a surge of awe in her presence. Kaden sees it and smiles. "None of us are who we seem here," she says. "Are we?"

"It's a game, an illusion, that's the idea, isn't it?"

"And yet you come here for redemption in Fleshs.p.a.ce," she says.

"It's my last chance," I say, "without this I can't carry on."

Kaden inclines her head, "I'm here to help, not to stand in your way."

The code on my phone gives me one object in my player's inventory, a scroll. I pull it from the air and hand it to her. She looks at it and nods. She in turn gives me an object, a small golden bell.

"That will be stored as code in your phone," she says. A map to a pharmacy on Loop Street appears in the air and I grab it to store on my phone too. "Show the code to the pharmacist. He'll give you the account details for the payment."