Id and Reg confront a rogue politician, but discover she is more than they were expecting.

The painkillers were unpredictable; sometimes they would smother my REM time, sometimes not - though I suppose sleeping 20 hours a day was bound to leave some sort of window for dreams to enter.
My most frequent dream, the one I dreamt now, was of running down a hill. My steps grew longer, and I ran faster as I descended, till it was like gravity barely had hold of me at all. I leapt high into the air, scared, occasionally exulted, and soared in a long arc, landing at phenomenal speed and bouncing again into the air, my stomach a dead weight behind me. I would run like this over forests, plains, towns - all of which I had never seen outside a VR suite - for long distances, eventually landing in a sickening collapse that would jolt me awake.

*******

Id wakes, breathing hard, to an odd ringtone. He fumbles through his bag for Lebanon’s com. When he answers a crisp, female voice says ‘Albino Park, 30 minutes,’ and hangs up. Realising they will struggle to be there on time he asks the AI to wake Reg and tell him to meet in the Well’s pill depot as quickly as he can. Rubbing his face, he runs along the echoing catwalk for the elevator.
They leave the Well at once, hurrying to make the rendezvous in the allotted time. Now the City speeds by in a haze of light as Reg weaves the pill through the upper 3 express lanes of the arterial tube. Approaching their exit he decelerates hard, jostling down into a slower stream of pills, turns into the exit-tube, then merges upwards onto a suburban street. They pass the Anterior Bell, a mysterious artefact from the Old City that rings every half hour, despite attempts to locate its clapper and stop its noise. Reg turns into a wide, well-lit avenue that leads to the dark mass of Albino Park. Here, the City’s grainy light is turned off, providing a pleasantly night-like park. It is filled with pale trees, and the various water features that hold the wan reflections of their naked limbs.
They park the pill and follow one of the winding paths into the darkness, spiralling towards the centre, watching for the Councillor among the spectral white trunks which scratch at the blackness. The air is cool, and the City nothing more than a series of noises in the distance. There is no one around.
Deep inside they come on a circular lake, its radius and centre point delineated with a wooden causeway and small rotunda. The 2 men glance at each other, then walk silently along the causeway, black water slapping in the cracks between the planks below. But the rotunda is empty. Id is about to ask Reg where he thinks they should look now, when a small noise and a hint of movement from the causeway makes them turn.
Id recognises Clover Lebanon immediately. She is both taller and stranger than in the com news bites, or in the hours of Company files he has looked through. She is dressed in a black garment of indistinct cut and her neck arches out, long and white, holding an elongate face, its cheekbones high, mouth small and diamond shaped. Her nose is long and dignified; her ears are pointed, at the top and at the lobe. She is outlandish, and Id wonders how she managed to get elected - he imagines surreal news bites in which she kisses babies, hands out sweets to small children, perhaps provoking frightened tears.
“I am sorry to sneak up on you,” she says with a hesitant smile, “but I wanted to be sure you were alone.”
Lebanon stands at the rotunda’s entrance. She reaches to shake Id’s hand, and abruptly breaks into a wave of violence, taking the hand he offers and pulling him to her, delivering a savage head butt to his face. They clash in an almost choreographed cascade of punch and block. Id must rely totally on the skills drummed into him by the mechanical, repeated again and again until they became automatic. He holds his own for a few seconds, stupidly advancing on her while she remains in the doorway, where there is no room for Reg to help him. Then Clover catches his wrist, twists it, dislocating his shoulder, and yanks him to her again. His forehead smashes into the heel of her palm, and she discards him. He lays stunned, thoughts slow with pain, and watches as she turns on his partner.
Registered is amazingly quick, but with such fluidity that he seems to move almost lazily from one position to the next. The 2 fight fiercely, Reg on the attack, reeling off effortless 8 and 12 punch combinations interspersed with sweeping low kicks and leaping high kicks. Clover blocks or parries most of these, then presses forward with a barrage of fast, stabbing punches. Reg melts away from these and she presses harder. He is forced to block, then retreat.
Id struggles under the weight of his concussion, groping for the small boson gun he realises he should have drawn the moment they stepped into the park. Clover sees him fumbling for the weapon, and suddenly spits something at Reg’s eyes. There is a fizzing noise and Reg swears, blinded. To Id’s amazement he continues fighting for a moment, by sound or instinct, but soon the Councillor knocks him down.
Id’s hands still won’t cooperate, and before he can draw the gun Clover steps forward and kicks him neatly in the head. Id blacks out for a moment, and she bends and takes the gun from inside his jacket, then moves away and trains the weapon on them both. “Fuck. What are you?” says Reg, sitting quietly, his eyes shut tight and red.