Gadgets And GhostsThe decontamination booths reminded Jake of those antique telephone kiosks so treasured by collectors. They weren't red and didn't have those small glass panes for windows, but they were much the same size and even smelled bad. Not of urine, no, but garlic; Jake couldn't make up his mind which was more nauseous.

Situated in the back of the rearmost articulated trailer section, and fitted with doors as small as the toilet doors on an airplane, there were three booths on each side. Inside each booth was a disposal unit for soiled clothing; discarded items were sucked away, irradiated and microwaved, spat from an exterior chute and burned. The procedure covered all clothing. Which meant you were left buck-naked in the waterproof and airtight booth, where the rest of the process was entirely automatic. And that was when you discovered why these claustrophobic little shower-units  -  for that's what they were  -  smelled so foul. At first it was just hot water, stinging like BB shot where it blasted down on you from overhead jets, but in a few seconds it was something else: a mixture of something chemical and antiseptic, and something vegetable and oily. The chemical saturated and then evaporated, but the oil stayed. And  -  damn it to hell!  -  you were supposed to rub it into your pores. But if there was one thing Jake especially hated, it was garlic!

There was an intercom system; you could talk to people in the ops section, or to other agents undergoing decontamination in the booths, whichever. Also, the uppermost sections of the booths were glass-panelled on the sides from the neck up, and from there down stainless steel. This last was simply a matter of common decency; there were female as well as male agents.Jake had chosen a central booth and Liz had taken the one to his left. Switching on her booth intercom, she said, 'I see you picked the middle one. You could have taken the one on the end, so there'd at least be a booth between us!' Looking sexy as hell (for all that Jake could only see her face, her long slender neck and shoulders), she pulled an impish face at him through the glass.But he only grinned  -  a rare occurrence in itself where Jake Cutter was concerned  -  and answered, 'Oh, really? And why didn't you choose one on the other side of the vehicle, so you wouldn't have to be near me at all?' Then on the spur of the moment he leaned forward, flattened his hawk nose to the glass panel, and made as if to look down inside her booth. There was no way; the glass was misted at the edges and it was all gleam, steam, and cream down there. 'Oblige me and stand on your toes, will you?' he grunted  -  and was so astonished at himself that he bit his tongue  -  and was equally amazed at Liz when, for a single instant of time, she actually seemed to consider doing it!It was the look on her face: a not-quite innocence, a curiosity, a magnetism that worked both ways. She looked beautiful like that: hair plastered down, make-up all washed away, and her skin shiny with oil  -  yet still beautiful. Jake was drawn by it  -  and repulsed. There was something he'd vowed to himself, and he would stick by it to the end, until it was done. And anyway, Liz didn't stand on her toes but simply blushed. Or maybe that was as a result of the steam. In which case it would be hiding his colour, too ... thank the Lord!

'Anyway, what are you doing here?' she said. And maybe it was his imagination, but her voice sounded just a little husky.

Must be the intercom. 'I mean, you've made it amply clear that you don't want to be with us. So why are you?'Jake glanced at the intercom panel. Liz's button was the only one that was lit up. No one else was listening, so their conversation would be completely private. That was assuming he wanted to talk, of course. And suddenly he did. 'I didn't have any choice,' he said. 'I could be here or I could be locked up. Well, I've been in jail, and here is better. But after tonight, I can tell you it's not much better ...' There he stopped short, reconsidered. Why bother? Why try to get close to anyone? He'd been close to someone before, and she'd paid for it. Once was enough.'They ... they jailed you for murder?' Liz said, and her face was very serious now. 'That's what I've heard, anyway.''I killed some people,' Jake nodded. 'And if I get half a chance there are still two more who I want to kill.' He admitted it oh so matter-of-factly, and for a moment his brown eyes were very nearly black; they were bleak, too, almost vacant in their intensity. Liz felt that Jake's eyes looked at something a thousand miles away, perhaps a scene from memory, his as yet undisclosed past. Or maybe it was just an effect of the misted glass.But then he smiled, however wanly, and was animate again. 'So, there you go. That's me, Mr Bad Man. So what's your story, Liz? What's a nice girl like you doing in a freaky outfit like this?'She felt cheated, because she knew he hadn't told it all. Not nearly. 'Tell me just one more thing,' she said, shivering because the spray was cooler now, and also because of the look she'd seen in his eyes. 'About you, or about those men you say you killed. Did they deserve it?'He looked at her, then answered her with a question of his own. 'What about those creatures tonight: did they deserve it?''But they were vampires, monsters!'He simply nodded, left it for her to figure out...

By which time the spray had become shampoo, and they knew it was nearly over, this part of it, anyway. As he soaped himself down Jake reminded her, 'I'm waiting.' Despite his doubts, his resolve, still his interest couldn't be denied.

'Hmm?' she said. Then: 'Oh! Why am I here? That's easy. I was doing some work for a psychic-research group. Looking back, I suspect it was an E-Branch recruiting ploy. They haven't said as much, not yet, but I gather they're pretty hush-hush until a person is well-established with them. Anyway, the job was easy, the money was good and I needed the work. My office was in central London; I interviewed people, allegedly for Mind Magazine, and if they responded positively to a certain set of questions, then I was supposed to work with them and carry out a series of tests.' She shrugged, and through the misted glass Jake saw her shoulders give a little twitch, the suggestive movement of hero oounderarm flesh as the weight of her ample breasts settled.'Anyway,' she went on, 'I used an old German Prismaton-70 in the tests, and - ''A what?' Jake cut her off.'It's a machine that chooses psi symbols at random.''Psi symbols?'Liz sighed. 'Five designs: a star, a circle, a square, a plus sign, and wavy lines.''I'm with you now,' Jake said. 'The machine picks the symbol, and the test subject has to guess which one it is.''Except it's not supposed to be a guess,' Liz told him. 'I mean, they're supposed to concentrate and try to know what symbol it is! That's what ESP is all about.''Go on.''Well, at first I would get a few lucky guessers ... they might come up with two or three correct symbols in a row and I would get all excited. But in the long run it never worked out to anything, and I'd be disappointed because, you know, I wanted to earn my money. But for me to be successful, obviously my test subjects had to be successful, too. And so I found myself willing them to get it right. Someone would say, "Square!" And I would be telling myself, "No, no, no! That's wrong! It's the wavy lines!"57Until I reached the stage when I was saying, "No, that's wrong," or, if someone got lucky, "Yes, that's right," before they named their choice, before they even spoke!''Let me guess,' said Jake. 'You didn't know what was going on. You thought that either you were mistaken, or the machine  -  the, er, Prismaton-70?  -  was playing tricks with you, or - ''But it couldn't be the machine,' Liz cut him short, 'because it's only a machine/' - Or that you yourself/ Jake went on, 'must somehow be "in tune" with your subjects. Mental telepathy, right?'She nodded. 'It was me. It wasn't that my subjects, an incredibly high percentage of them, were good at sending  -  which is E-Branch parlance for telepathic transmissions  -  but that / was good at receiving. I was a receiver, a mind-reader. I could "tune in" to other people's thoughts, yes. Not all the time and not without a lot of effort and concentration, but sometimes/'Which was something you'd never noticed before?' Despite the events of the night  -  the fact that he'd observed for himself her obvious effect on Trennier  -  still Jake was a little sceptical. 'I mean, that you knew what people were thinking?'She grinned. 'Well, I frequently knew what men were thinking ...." Slowly her grin disappeared. 'No, seriously, I hadn't the foggiest idea. But as soon as I did know, then it was like Topsy/ 'It just growed and growed .. / Jake thought it over. 'And then there's you/ Liz said pointedly. But he wasn't having any and simply looked away.

The pungent soap had stopped and it was plain water now, and cold. Just as they might have started complaining, the system closed itself down and a light began flashing on the intercom. It was Trask, wanting to know, 'Are you people done? Good.' So get out of there and make room for someone else/ The rest of the team, all of them, would go through a less intensive cycle. But Jake and Liz weren't finished yet.

Dry towelling robes dispensed themselves from compartments in the rear of the booths, with plastic-bag 'bootees' for their feet. Then the doors concertinaed of their own accord, and outside in the corridor other agents were coming aboard and making ready. But Jake and Liz stayed apart from them and went on into the body of the ops vehicle and the next stage, where Trask himself administered hypodermic injections while the old man, Lardis Lidesci, stood watching. Until finally they were obliged to drink something vile.

'God!' Jake gasped, clutching his throat. And again: 'God, but if I'm not going to be sick as a dog ...!''If you are,'said the Old Lidesci, Til take it as a very bad sign/ And Trask grinned, however coldly, as Lardis fondled the grip of his machete.'He won't be sick/ Trask said then. 'And even if he is it won't mean anything. I remember I was sick myself, desperately, the first time I tasted that stuff/'Garlic?' Still Jake felt like gagging.'Derived from/ Trask shrugged. 'Anyway, it's good for you ... or so I'm told/ Turning, he led the way down the corridor, past doors to a half-dozen cramped bunks, and through a telescopic conduit and hatch into the vehicle's forward trailer section. Then at last they were there: in the ops room itself, the mobile nerve-centre ...lan Goodly was in the hollow oval that formed the central desk. He swung round the oval on a tracked chair, studying the various illuminated wall-charts and monitor screens. The place was hi-tec heaven, well in advance even of anything else that AD 2011 had to offer. In complete contrast to the articulated shell of truck and trailers  -  indeed, utterly contradicting that outer facade, with its mundane and easily identifiable 'Castlemaine' and 'XXXX' legends  -  this interior was something out of speculative fiction. And never a can of beer in sight.Goodly was wearing what looked like a virtual reality headset that was constantly tuning itself to whatever event or location he was observing. But as he swung into a new position and Trask and company came between the precog and the ever-changing screens, so Goodly brought his chair to a halt and took off the headset.The Old Lidesci shook his grizzled head in astonishment and grunted, 'After two years of working with you people, I'm still not used to it.' Not used to ... to this.'Trask nodded his understanding. 7 know what you mean/ he said, 'but you won't get too much sympathy from me. Hell, it's been more than thirty years for me  -  and I still feel the same about it/ What was it Alec Kyle used to say? How did he put it? Or was it Darcy Clarke?' He shrugged. 'But what difference does it make, eh? It could have been any one of us. "Robots and romantics. Super-science and the supernatural. Telemetry and telepathy. Computerized probability patterns and precognition. Huh! Gadgets and ghosts.'" Well, that's it. That's E-Branch/But Jake wanted to know: 'Just what is E-Branch? What's it all about? Don't you think it's time we saw the whole picture?' He glanced at Liz. 'Well, me at least... especially after what you threw me into tonight?''Threw us into,' said Liz. 'I'm not as much in the dark as you, Jake, but it's still pretty murky around here.' She looked at Trask, perhaps accusingly. 'And after all, while tonight was one of the first things we've done, it might also have been the last.'But lan Goodly shook his head. 'No/ he said. 'You have a way to go yet, you two/'Precog/ Jake said, sourly. 'That's how I've heard people refer to you. But how can you possibly know for sure?'And Trask said, 'Because he hasn't let us down yet/'And what if tonight had been the first time?' Jake wasn't convinced.

But Trask only raised a white eyebrow. 'So what's your big problem, Jake? Are you trying to kid us you haven't been doing your best to get yourself killed these last three years?'

'Maybe,' Jake snapped. 'But on my terms!'

'Well now it's on my terms/ Trask growled. 'Or E-Branch's terms/ Then he relaxed a little, looked less severe, and said, 'Okay, I'll tell you. It was a test. Oh, it served its purpose, too, but it was nevertheless a test. And you both passed it. We saw enough tonight  -  enough happened  -  to convince us we were right/

'About me?' Jake said.'About both of you/ Trask replied. 'Liz did her thing, and we all saw Trennier's reply. She sent and he received  -  and he reacted!''Did he ever!' said Liz with a shudder. 'But you're the one who told me to taunt him/

Trask nodded and said, 'And you made a damn good job of it, too, and satisfied our best expectations. So, if you still want in, welcome to the club. You're one of us. And having seen what you've seen  -  even with what little we've allowed you to learn  -  we've no doubt but that you'll join us. So that's that. And in any case you have time to think about it/

'And do I have time to think about it, too?' Jake said testily. 'If so you can have my answer right now. It's no, I'm out/

Trask frowned, narrowed his eyes, and said, 'Well, that's a damn shame because you don't have a choice. And that's because you, too, did your thing tonight. Something I haven't seen the likes of in, oh, five years. And when I did last see it ... it was in another world, a vampire world, Lardis's world/

Jake looked at the three men in turn  -  Trask, Goodly, Lardis Lidesci, the way they looked back at him: sincere, serious, speculative?  -  and shook his head in mock despair. 'I've been telling myself that it's all a dream, one from which I'll soon be waking up/ he said. Then his voice hardened. 'But it isn't and I won't  -  not from any dream of mine, anyway. This is your dream, your fucking nightmare, and I've had it up to here!''Oh no, this is everyone's nightmare/ Trask told him, and then pressed on: 'But which part do you think is a dream,

Jake? The strange work we do, or the fantastic thing that you do?''I don't do anything!' Jake turned on him, and for a moment looked like he might hit him. 'It just ... it just happens.' He clenched his fists, unclenched them, stood lost for words.Trask shook his head. 'But things don't "just happen", Jake,' he said. 'They happen for reasons. And we've got to figure out why they're happening to you.' He turned to lan Goodly. 'Do we have his file?'The precog nodded, swung his chair to a filing cabinet set in a section of the oval desk, took out a slim folder and handed it over.There were chairs that folded into the walls. Trask let one down, sat in it, and invited the others to do the same. Then he opened the file. And:'Jake Cutter ...' he began. But Jake's voice was harsh as he interrupted:'Do you intend to to read it all? Even the nasty bits? With a woman present?' The others had taken chairs, but he was still standing.'Brief details,' Trask said, staring up at him. 'Why do you ask? Is there something you're ashamed of?''What has that got to do with it?' Jake blurted. 'That's my life you're holding in your hands. It's private  -  or it used to be.''The newspapers didn't think so.' Trask didn't even blink.'Hell, no, they didn't!' Jake said. 'They held me one hundred per cent responsible for my "crimes!" And do you intend to detail those, too? Is this how you're going to keep me in line, working for you, for E-Branch: by holding a bloody axe over my head every time I voice an opinion or refuse to cooperate?'

Trask shook his head. 'That has nothing to do with it. The object of the exercise is to get to the root of your talent. As for your so-called "crimes" ... it's the opinion of this Branch that you don't have too much to be ashamed of.'

For a moment Jake was taken aback, but then he said, 'What if I don't much care about the opinion of this Branch?'

'But you do,' said Trask. 'You believe in justice, and you couldn't get any. So you provided your own rough justice, which was just a little too rough for our modern society. In E-Branch, Jake, we understand rough justice. It's sometimes the only kind that will fit. And we were taught by an expert, someone who believed in an eye for an eye almost as much as you do. Well, now we wonder if that's all you have in common with him, or if this talent of yours is something else. And what's more, there might even be other talents. We want to explore that possibility, too  -  indeed, every possibility  -  and you can help us or hinder us. In which case ... eventually we'd be obliged to give up on you. And there's still an empty cell waiting for you, remember?'

Jake's hard-frozen shell was coming apart now. Not his resolve but the icy sheath that covered it, without which he wouldn't have been able to face his own atrocities. For that was how he secretly viewed some of his past deeds, as atrocities. Everyone else had seemed to think so, anyway. Yet in his heart, still Jake believed that what Ben Trask had said was right: sometimes an eye for an eye was the only way. And suddenly Jake found himself believing everything else that Trask was telling him, that E-Branch really did care and was on his side. It was just that it had been such a long time since anyone was on his side.And now Trask was saying, 'So can we get on?'Jake drew a chair out from the wall, sat down heavily and said, 'Why do I get this feeling this isn't a con? You're what they call a human lie-detector, right? Well, Mr Trask, if you ask me, I'd say your talent works both ways! I get the impression that you really do want to help me, even if it's only so I can help you ...'Trask actually smiled then, and said, 'Jake, you're exactly right. I hate all lies and liars, and I instinctively know when something isn't true, isn't right. Don't ask me how, I just do.

But it's equally hard for me to tell a lie as to listen to one. I just thought you might like to know that.'Jake nodded and, feeling a little more in control now, said, 'Okay, so if you think there's ... something wrong with me and you can maybe fix it, I suppose I'd be a fool to object.'Trask sat back and issued an audible sigh. 'Very well. But you have to understand. It's not that we think there's anything wrong with you, but that something may be right. From our point of view, anyway.'And then he returned to the file ...

'Your father was a USAF pilot,' Trask began. 'As a rookie, Joe Cutter served at an American airbase in southern England. That was where he met your mother, an English girl from a well-to-do family. Janet Carson's folks objected; they got married anyway; for a while Janet was a camp follower, living wherever Joe was based. Then you came along, doing your bit to stabilize a frequently stormy relationship ... well, for a little while, anyway.

But the marriage didn't last. Your father was too often away, and your mother ... took lovers.' Trask lifted his gaze from the file, looked at Jake. 'If this is too personal I can skip forward ... '

'You're doing okay/ Jake shrugged. 'Since my parents left me nothing in the way of great memories, what does it matter?'And so Trask continued. 'Your mother had friends in what's called "high society." Eventually she married a French businessman, with whom she lived in St Tropez, until ... well, until she died five years ago.'Again Jake's shrug, though not as careless as he might have tried to make it seem. 'It's nice in Nice,' he said.

'So as a baby you went to your British grandparents,' Trask went on, 'who were maybe a little on the wrong side of fifty to take on your upringing. As for your father: Joe Cutter died on aerial manoeuvres in Germany in 1995, piloting a way beyond its sell-by-date airplane known "affectionately" to its pilots as a "Flying Coffin." Joe was coming to the end of his service when it happened, and you were just fifteen years old ...

'You were an unruly kid, Jake. Too much money, courtesy of your then aging and indeed doting grandparents, too many opportunities to smoke "funny" cigarettes, and probably to try other "controlled" pharmaceuticals? Too much time on your hands, and nothing much to look forward to, not to your way of thinking at least. So you dropped out of school, spent some time with your mother in France; but she had quite a few bad habits of her own and wasn't a very good influence. And anyway, you didn't get on with her. You said you might join the Army and your grandfather was delighted. He said, "Excellent! The Brigade of Guards! The old school tie and all that, wot? Wot?" So you joined the Parachute Regiment because you wanted to jump out of airplanes! And in just two years you transferred to the SAS. Well, so much for parental guidance.'When they kicked you out of the SAS your final report said you were incapable of taking orders. Also, and this is a damned strange thing for the SAS, the report said you were too much of a loner! This from an outfit that prides itself on self-dependence, or total independence! So there you were, five years ago: back to the good life, a life of luxury in the South of France, where you lived off your Ma's money.'Jake shrugged, but he looked more than a little uncomfortable. 'Her second husband left her a packet,' he said. 'And her third was even richer. So why should I break my back working?''I'm not criticizing you, Jake,' Trask told him. Tm just pointing out what you were then, in order to find a comparison with what you later became in the eyes of society. Which is to say a criminal. More than that, a brutal murderer.''Now just you wait a minute!' Jake started to say, 'Didn't you tell me that you - ' until Trask cut him off with:'In the eyes of society, anyway. But society has been known to make the odd mistake here and there. And E-Branch ... well, we're sometimes called in to clean up the mess; though as often as not we just jump in feet first regardless. Very well, now we can get away from your story for a minute or so ...' And after a brief pause fie went on:'For the last fifteen to twenty years  -  or even longer than that, indeed ever since the fall of Communism  -  Europe has been in one hell of a mess. Recessions, revolutions, coups one after the other; nuclear black spots where Russian power-stations and weapons dumps are left rotting down to so much atomic rubble; little wars, and not so little wars left, right, and centre as nations take their revenge, engage in racial vendettas that should have been settled, probably would have been settled, a hundred years ago if Soviet expansionism and Communism hadn't called a temporary halt to them. Power struggles in political systems that are still sorting themselves out, in Rome and Moscow and elsewhere; ethnic cleansing in and around the Slavic and Baltic countries, and regular revolutions in Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania. Italian, French, and German governments coming and going as regular as the ticking of a clock, and lasting about the same length of time, never long enough to do anyone any good. And as for the Near and Middle East, Africa, the Orient .. / Trask sighed and shook his head. 'Have I painted a sufficiently gloomy picture?' And without waiting for an answer:'Well, thank God we're an island  -  England, I mean  -  and also that we've maintained and strengthened our ties with America and Australia. Because the rest of the world seems like no-man's-land. In a word, it's chaos.'It seems an ideal scenario for the end of life as we know it, right? Even as I speak the depletion of the ozone layer continues, we're into yet another El Nifio  -  the fourth in fifteen years  -  and there's a rip-roaring plague spreading west out of an ideologically and financially exhausted China. But there are worse plagues than a new strain of the bubonic variety, believe me ...'

Again a brief pause, until: 'And so back to you,' Trask continued, staring at Jake.

'Your mother died of an overdose, left you some money - '

'The money was about the only decent thing she ever did for me,' Jake nodded, his husky tone betraying his true emotions.

' - But you and money together spelled more trouble.' Trask chose to ignore the interruption. 'So maybe you didn't have too much going for you, you and your Ma  -  still her death affected you badly. You went on a long drinking spree in all the Mediterranean resorts from Genoa to Marseille, wrecked your car on the Italian Riviera; the paparazzi took your photograph during several fist-fights in Cannes. Also it's not at all unlikely that you returned to your drug-taking habits.''I never had much of a habit,' Jake told him. 'Oh, I tried just about every brand, that's true, but they only made me ill. Those "funny" cigarettes were about as bad as it ever got, and where I've spent the last three months even they were far too expensive. I'm used to my asshole the shape and size I've always known it!' He looked at Liz and said, 'Sorry, but if you insist on being here ...'She shook her head, answered, 'I'm not a child, Jake. After tonight I thought you'd know that much, at least.'And Trask went on just as if no one else had spoken: 'Then you met a girl. There'd been women in your life  -  quite a few  -  but this one was something else. She was special.''This is the bit you can skip,' Jake told him gruffly. But:'Unfortunately not,' Trask answered. 'If Liz is to be your partner, and the rest of E-Branch is to work with you, they'll need to know that you aren't quite the savage that the world  -  and probably you, too, Jake  -  thinks you are. They'll need to know you had your reasons.'And Jake sat silently now, his head lowered ...