Thursday, 7th February 2019Charlie didn’t know what to make of the enormous stash of documents. It looked at first like Jess’d tried to create something coherent from the mass. One file popped up first, linking a sequence of documents together into a disturbing sequence of events. But then there just seemed to be endless other documents. She clicked on a few at random: financial summaries, contracts, lists of bank transfers, lists of names... As she hurriedly clicked through them she noticed some names repeating, but she knew that nothing much was going to come from attacking a vast number of files this way.

  She sipped her coffee and sat back, looking around the cafe. No one seemed to be paying her any attention, but she was aware that she was exposed. She may not have the programming finesse, she thought, but she could cludge together a script to analyse this data and produce something showing the flow of money and the connections. It would take her a while though, and she gnced anxiously at the clock. By the time she was through and had something vaguely functional, the coffee was cold and the world outside was glowing from the streetlights hazed in drizzle. It was a messy Python script for sure, but it should do at least some basic sorting. However, there was enough information here that she couldn’t wait for it to do its job without risking discovery.

  She needed somewhere to stash the ptop while it churned through the mountain of data. Staring out of the window watching the early evening traffic, a smile pyed at the corner of her mouth. She knew where the ptop could go. She just needed someone she could trust at the office and a bit of time, and somewhere to store it tonight. She yanked the memory card and stuffed it back in her sock, just in case. Scribbling the make, model and serial number into a note on the phone, she tossed the ptop into her backpack and wandered out through the drizzly evening light into the nearest railway station.

  She needed a station with actual facilities, not one of the local unstaffed stops. The train was, astonishingly, on time, and the journey mercifully brief.

  The ticket office seemed to be closed, but thankfully one of the station staff had been able to point her to her destination. “Lost and found, love? Yeah, they’re open for about another 20 minutes.” He waved down the stairs. Charlie knew this station fairly well and, thanks to Jess’ game of ‘spot the camera’ (pyed in pretty much every location they ever went), and she was aware of where not to look. She sidled up to the counter and expined that she’d found this bag with a ptop in it on the train.

  —

  Noah sat, quietly nibbling on the biscuits and staring out the door of the office. It was pretty clear that someone was going to a great deal of bother to track Charlie, and, by extension, she assumed herself. She had her suspicions about how that might be happening, especially given the significant dey between Charlie’s arrival and the arrival of the man they’d been calling Christopher Alden.

  She didn’t yet have any proof. Another train rattled overhead as she wandered over to the sad remnants of Charlie’s bike and desultorily poked the charred wiring remnants. She’d be better off with the complete repcement she’d ordered. It’d get the bike back on the road - more reliably than it had been for years given the bodged together nature of the thing now – so there wasn't any point trying to fix the mess in front of her. Taking it off, though?

  Since the office was closed for the evening, and she didn’t expect any of the crew to be in, she clicked the radio on. She grinned, knowing how much they’d all hate Radio 3. Her fingers tapped the rhythm of Shostakovich as she pulled apart the connectors and snipped the oily zipties from the frame. Scars of a life well ridden were visible – surface rust and paint peeling from the swingarm, and a multitude of scrapes over the tank and side panels. Charlie and the previous owner had patched breaks in the wires in multiple pces and someone had modified it, but not well. Noah rolled her eyes at the state of the thing. No wonder it had tried to catch fire - it was probably trying to put itself out of its misery. She grumbled to herself that she might, just might, have to concede that the bike’s disastrous failure hadn’t been deliberate sabotage on Charlie’s part.

  Startled out of her thoughts by another train, Noah cursed, realising she’d let it get te. She grabbed the little brick phone off the counter to text Michael and was startled by her phone immediately ringing. Dropping it in shock, she jumped to pick it up. What on Earth was Charlie doing calling now?

  “I wondered if you were still at the office?” Charlie queried.

  “Yeah, I’m fixing your bloody bike. Although with what the fuck the previous numpty did to the wiring, I’m shocked it didn’t go up in smoke earlier.”

  “Um, yeah. Well, if you’re going to be there for a bit I might drop by and see how she’s coming. I’m missing her,” Charlie mumbled.

  “I was about to fuck off home, but if you can be over quick I’ll show you where I’m up to and you’re welcome to have dinner with me and the boy - assuming he’s not eaten. I was about to give him a text ‘cos time got away from me.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as the prole wagon will allow.”

  Twenty minutes ter a damp Charlie arrived to find the almost completely bare remnants of her bike sitting on the stand, and a spaghetti noodle of wiring dangling from it. A whimper escaped from her mouth as she sat dejectedly on the floor.

  “Noah! What… but… why?” she started before noticing the warning look on Noah’s face. Charlie paused, and when Noah spoke to her she gestured subtly towards the bike.

  “The wiring was worse than I thought. It’ll take me a while to finish a job this big.” Charlie’s face scrunched confusedly as Noah poked a finger at the front of the bike. In response Charlie scrabbled up off the floor and peered where Noah’d waved.

  “We should probably head out for dinner, but I’m going to need a few to put the tools away.” The absence of profanities was really starting to unnerve Charlie, and she looked around the office trying to see if someone was hiding in the gloom. Finding no one, she looked quizzically at Noah, who’d grabbed tools from the lift and was noisily putting them away. Noah seemed to be trying to indicate something with her eyes. When telepathic transmission failed, she grabbed Charlie’s arm and pointed at a tiny object wedged into the back of the headlight casing. Almost invisible against the bck paint, the two thin snaking wires running from it tapped into the wiring. Charlie finally grasped Noah’s message.

  Charlie picked up the st of the tools and ferried them across to the toolbox, where Noah asked if she was going to join her and Michael for dinner while subtly nodding. “Um, sure. Yeah, that sounds nice."

  The office locked up and the arm armed, Charlie and Noah stepped out onto the street and Noah decimed that they were walking to her favourite Indian restaurant, unless Charlie had an objection, before walking in exactly the opposite direction.

  After a few minutes of brisk walking and banal chatter, Noah waved at Charlie's bag. Charlie quietly expined how pretty much everything was new or, at least, recently in her possession before Noah quietly uttered, "Your fucking bike was being tracked. I don't know how long that was there, but long enough that it had some fucking corrosion on it." Noah hesitated before continuing. "I need to check the, uh, fleet, but I'm guessing that at least some of them have fucking well been tagged too, and it's small enough that it's going to be a complete fucking arse to find."

  "How do you know it's a tracker?" Charlie asked, quietly.

  Noah hesitated. "Oh, I don't. Not for certain. But it's not an immobilizer. It's just drawing a tiny amount of power, or would be if your bike hadn't tried to self fucking immote. I almost texted Jim a picture to ask before thinking better of it, thankfully, because he'd fucking crucify me I suspect - sending a picture of that fucking thing unencrypted. Although he could probably drop by and check if I ask him nicely." They walked a few moments in silence before Noah continued. "But I'll tell you something for fucking nothing. That's some expensive tech. I got the smallest fancy-fucking commercial grade trackers as a tester for some of our other riders if they wanted and it's about twice, no three times the fucking size of that."

  "I," Charlie began before abruptly reconsidering, "No, okay, no, right, before I say anything else do you want to know any more?" Noah started to reply, but for once Charlie ran right over her and continued, "And please, please take some time to think about this, because I… Jess and I are very clearly in some deep fucking shit against some seriously well connected people and I have no idea - less than no idea - how the hell to get out, and I don't want to drag you into this, but it's clear you're already dragged in."

  Noah hesitated again. Finally she quietly said, "I'll talk to Michael," before she gnced at her watch and added, "speaking of which, where is he?"