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This story has not been beta-read, so any mistakes in it are mine.

First Twenty-Four

So this is what freedom feels like…

After so long Malcolm's not sure quite what to do with it; or with himself for that matter. He lifts his head and sniffs the wind off the Bay, with its familiar tang of the sea.

Two days, then. Forty-eight hours, in which to lose himself; to take his farewells of what's left of the life he knew, before he's absorbed into a team.

He doesn't know who they are. It doesn't matter. They will be his comrades; probably not his friends, but they'll depend on him for their lives just as he will on them for his.

Maybe some of them will die.

Maybe all of them will die.

And nobody will give a damn.

It gives him a bitter sense of liberty – of irresponsibility, almost.

The dawn, he thinks, is singularly beautiful. You see so many colours in the sea as the sun comes up, constantly changing. Today there's just a hint of a breeze, enough to frill the rim of each crest with foam. He stands on the foreshore, hands in pockets, and feels the wind pushing against his face. He hasn't bothered to button up his coat or wrap his scarf more tightly, so the chill is noticeable, but he hopes that inside and outside will soon equalise and he will no longer notice either, ever again.

Down on the beach, someone throws a stick for a dog. The animal chases joyfully after it; an Afghan hound or something like it, with long hair that flies like banners in the breeze as it gallops.

He shudders a little and turns away. He can taste fur in his mouth, and blood.

The memories catch him this way sometimes. Mostly he's learned to control them. After all, the fur and the blood made him what he is. Now he's fit only for the company of others who've been there … or at least understand, insofar as anyone can who hasn't. He doesn't know if any or all of his new comrades will have done; he will know, though, within minutes of meeting them, and he himself will be equally known.

He walks into the city, which is beginning to shake itself awake for a new day. The level sun is bright on countless windowpanes, and the trees are just starting to deck themselves in new leaf.

With no sense of purpose he boards a tram. Within the first thirty seconds he's divested a fellow-traveller of his wallet, which after some deliberation he replaces, though in a different pocket. It might have been faintly amusing to go through the charade of pretending to have picked it up from the floor, but he can't be bothered. They've taught him all the tricks of the trade, and these are the simplest and the cleanest. In three days' time he won't be playing them for a joke on hapless passers-by; he'll be playing them for real.

Sooner or later, whenever it suits his master's purposes, he will kill.

He wonders how it'll feel. It's difficult to imagine. He's learned all the techniques, of course, and it's not as though creatures haven't died with his teeth in them before, but he suspects that being singlehandedly responsible for the end of a sentient creature will be somehow more personal. It would be a comfort of sorts if he could believe he'll feel remorse, but he fears that that particular sentiment is long gone – something he left behind on that planet that has no name, much as one would leave an outworn coat. Its lack paints him as something less than human.

Predator or prey.

It wasn't what he envisaged when he set out from his native land, but then his life has changed almost beyond recognition in the past year. The credit chip in his trouser pocket would put him on a plane home if he wished, but that's the last place he wants to go; there's nothing for him there. Briefly he contemplates booking a trip into the mountains – he likes mountains, and his snowboarding skills will be getting rusty – but on reflection the clean simplicity of the Sierra Nevada is too profound a contrast to his soul. The mountains represent so much that he is not, but would once have liked to be.

It's a price he accepted long ago, but there are still days when he realises how high it is.

Still, he craved excitement, and soon he will have it, but now he has two days to spend as he will. He gets off at a stop he doesn't know and goes wandering; he finds some excitement briefly in an alley, but it doesn't keep him for long. The kid who'd had ambitions on the contents of his pockets is left groaning behind the dustbins with three broken fingers and several broken ribs, and maybe it's just because it's a pity to spoil a lovely morning that the knife he'd brought along to the party is left beside him instead of in him. Perhaps the encounter will teach the youngster wisdom but it probably won't, and quite frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

There's a church a little further on. It would seem the diocese has funds to spare, or maybe the last one burned or fell down, because its newness stands out among its unlovely surroundings so starkly that it's an even bet that very few of the locals set foot in it.

He moves to pass on, but somehow his feet take him inside.

The architecture is modern, but the designer understood light all too well. The radiance of the early morning spills across the floor like the promise of redemption, while the clean, simple lines of the structure itself seem almost to float in the brilliance.

It has nothing to say to him, or he to it.

Were this the dusty brown bosom of St Matthew's, things might have been different. He feels absurdly that, had the Lady Chapel contained a seated Madonna della sedia, the temptation to lay his head in her lap and sob his heart out might have been beyond resistance. So it's probably just as well that the statue there is safely and respectably and indubitably Anglo-Saxon, and offers no tempting and capacious lap.

He wanders out into the nave again. The pews look like birchwood, but in reality they're made of some synthetic material that will resist the attentions of penknives in bored fingers. They're comfortable enough, though. He sits in one and stares silently at the altar, which is bathed in irrelevant but beautiful light. He wants to talk about Helen but can find nothing to say, and isn't sure anyone would be listening anyway.

If there were any point in such a thing, he'd wish that things were different. He'd wish that he could stand vigil here, purifying his soul in preparation for taking up a noble cause – or at least (his mouth twists into a brief, bitter half-smile) a worthwhile career. As it is, there are a number of the tools of his future trade that he could lay on the altar, but a sword isn't among them; a packet of C-4 explosive would probably look showy, while at the other end of the scale a garrotte – well, it's not nice.

So perhaps not.

There have been faint sounds of occupation in the vestry, and presently the door opens to disgorge a lone man whose black cassock identifies him instantly. The glance around the church is probably as natural to him as breathing, taking inventory of what's still intact and who's come in. The single quiet worshipper seated motionless in a pew doubtless receives an assessing glance, but other than that the place is deserted, and the priest peacefully sets about his preparations for the morning service. It's probably inevitable that the church vessels are made of the same synthetic birchwood as the pews, but their simplicity has a beauty of its own.

There's a confessional in one corner. With a second twist of amusement, this one bitterer than gall, Malcolm imagines himself in it. It would be a short interview, at a guess.

Bless me, Father, for I am about to embark on a life of sin…

'No absolution for that one, son. And personally I wouldn't bank on having time for any last-minute repentance, either, not in your job. Get out, and stop wasting my time.'

He carefully avoids eye contact as the priest brings a pitifully small number of hymnbooks down the aisle to place by the door for a congregation that'll probably struggle to achieve double figures.

Nevertheless, there must have been something …

The light, steady steps slow a little. Before he quite understands what's happening there's a hand resting lightly on his hair, and a voice murmuring words for which a classical education comes in handy…

"In manus tuas, Domine…"

Horror seizes him. As though he were Satan and the words holy water, he dodges away from beneath the blessing hand and runs, vaulting over the pews in his desperation to escape the place because he can't escape himself.

"Into Your hands, O Lord…"

He does a little shopping – he owns nothing but what he's standing up in – then buys alcohol and checks into a hotel. He spends the rest of the afternoon drinking steadily and wishing it had been he instead of Helen who had died on the bio-bed in the laboratory, because he's a fucking coward who ran away from a stranger who somehow saw too much, and far too clearly.

Apart from scaring him silly, the episode has stirred another unwanted memory of a stranger's kindness. Grenham had obviously taken his advice. Malcolm tilts the bottle in a mocking toast to the doctor who'd been utterly unfitted to his job, whose compassion had been surplus to the Section's requirements. He hopes the man's still alive but has never asked. It would have been an obvious precaution to have modified his memories suitably, but you never know; maybe whatever leverage Harris obviously had on him to bring him into the Section's service might be thought enough to keep his mouth shut afterwards.

Compassion had not been among the qualities of those who'd had the supervising of him when the doctor had gone. They did their job efficiently and without passion, re-educating him into his humanity where such a thing was required. They never forgot what he'd been, or allowed him to forget either. He'd remained utterly isolated, festering in his own unforgiving silence.

The walls that have been around him for as long as he can remember had hardened steadily under their 'care'. Soon he couldn't have reached through them even if he'd wanted to, and now he can imagine no reason on earth why he would want to. He's confident that he can act like a pro when necessary; hopefully even Maddie won't notice anything amiss on the next of her infrequent calls to his vid-phone.

Two days to get through.

Bloody hell.

The club he goes to that night is more his style: dark and impersonal. The volume of the music discourages the concept of conversation, even if its patrons conceived of such a thing.

At strategic locations all-but-naked women gyrate around poles, bathed in light of a very different nature to the radiance of the morning. They're indifferent to his eyes on them, their expressions of arousal as professional as a receptionist's smile, but their bodies are alluring.

It's been too long since Helen's submission to his insistent lust. Need surges in his groin.

Doubtless in such a place there are convenient arrangements, but where's the challenge in that?

The credit chip stood him in good stead in a decent clothes shop. He looks good, and knows it.

There's a dance-floor, and he can move in a way that draws female eyes. T'ai chi has honed his natural gracefulness, and he responds to rhythm as though he's a part of it.

Soon it's a question not of if but which. Not that it matters much; the pleasure is all that counts.

The victim he eventually selects is quick on the uptake, he'll give her that. It isn't as though the alleyway outside the fire door has a particularly good view of the night sky after all, even if there weren't clouds across it.

She's petite – he prefers petite women – and soon her thighs are wrapped around him. Her half-indignant gasps as his rapidly mounting frenzy slams her repeatedly against the wall shatter like crystal against the duranium barricade of his indifference. So does her cheated wail as, having taken his pleasure, he pulls away, leaving her with no more feeling than a discarded condom.

He doesn't go back into the club. He vaults the wall into the alley instead, just for the hell of it. Her screamed epithets follow him and mean absolutely nothing.

There are other clubs and other women. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, maybe it's roofed with bad ones. He'll enjoy the scenery for a while.

At one point in his wanderings he passes the church. At this hour it should be dark, but there's the small glow of a single light inside – as though some damn fool insomniac were still up and praying on his knees for the soul of a stranger.

He curses himself for the wayward thought. At a guess it's just a security light, kept burning to discourage opportunist thieves and vandals, but still he swerves to pass by on the other side of the street. Heaven has no power over him, tonight or any other night, and as for his soul, well, the transaction's already signed and sealed. The day after tomorrow he'll join the rest of the damned, but he has a little over twenty-four hours left and he's not going to spend it looking for salvation.

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