Metal Fatigue by Sean Williams Page A

himself with the relatively petty list of inventories from one of Morrow's secret hideaways.
    It made no sense. Why would the Mole bother with small-scale stocktakes, unless ... ?
    Roads glanced higher up the list. The Mole had looked at the city's warehouses early, before checking the MSA and RSD stockpiles. At about the same time, he had lifted the first 'unofficial' inventory. A fortnight later, he had gained access to the records for the Old North Street residence.
    From that point onward, no other small-scale inventory had been stolen.
    Roads thumped the desk. He had it. The Mole had been looking for something specific among all the other data, something concrete. Then, as soon as he had located it, he had stopped looking. Three weeks later, he broke into Old North Street and took what he wanted without even a cursory glance at its data system.
    But what, then, had he taken?
    Roads' excitement faded rapidly in the face of oppressive tiredness. Five weeks of night shift were finally taking their toll. As he took out his contact lenses and stumbled to bed, he promised himself that he would look more closely at his discovery in the morning, if he could find the time among the preparations for Blindeye. He had yet to work out why the Mole had waited three weeks before taking what he wanted from Old North Street. If he had needed it so badly, why the delay?
    One question turned constantly through his mind as he tried to sleep. It was a question he feared he would never be able to answer, let alone in the few short days remaining to him — but he knew instinctively that the success of his investigation hinged upon doing just that.
    When he finally succumbed, he dreamed that a large man dressed in an overcoat and hat had given him an EPA44210 — and it was nothing at all.

INTERLUDE
    11:45 p.m.
    The night cooled rapidly. High above the street, among the wires and chimneys of the city, a subtle wind blew. It crept through clothing without being strong; it robbed warmth despite a lack of ice.
    He drew his overcoat closer about him and thought of heat, waves of heat flowing from the core of his body. A long and uncomfortable night stretched ahead of him. The ledge upon which he lay was narrow and exposed to the wind, but also the only one which granted him an unobstructed view of the house below. He would be forced to rely upon abilities he had not exercised for many years to remain alert.
    He had been designed neither to sleep nor to dream, and although experience had taught him that he needed both to function at optimal efficiency, he could still manage stretches of up to seventy-two hours without either. Sometimes he had micro-dreams — vivid, disturbing hallucinations that encroached upon his waking life until he could no longer function at all. But that only happened under extreme stress. At times like the present, when all he had to do was wait, a halfway state was sufficient: neither asleep nor awake: ready to act if anything changed below, but not wasting energy.
    Unblinking, he watched. His pulse slowed; his fingertips began to tingle. Within minutes he was no longer cold, and he had entered a state not dissimilar to deep meditation.
    As his thoughts stirred, sluggishly, one name recurred with regular frequency:
    Roads: the moustached man he had seen entering the building next door to his; the same man who had chased him upon his return three hours later; the man he remembered to be a police officer, based on a news report he had glimpsed in a market some days ago; the man he had followed in turn from RSD HQ, and for whom he now waited, again.
    Roads: the name by which the moustached man had referred to himself.
    Roads ...
    He could not return home. The area had been swarming with police the last time he had tried. Had he been recognised at last, after all the years of Sanctuary? He couldn't risk returning until he knew for sure that he hadn't. The witch-hunts of his distant memories were a harsh but accurate reminder