Babbage leant his head back and let the rain splash down onto his tongue. He needed to wash himself out, get rid of the oily, rotten air that was clinging to him. The rain would be dirty, everything out here was, but it had to be a hell of a lot cleaner than where he’d just been.

“Well Adlai, now we have some questions to answer.”

“Such as?”

“Such as what was wrong with that unfortunate man? Was he drugged and left for dead, or something else entirely? Why had he woken so suddenly when I touched his hand? And most importantly of all, what was that indescribable noise?”

An animal noise, it had poured out of the man, leapt out of his mouth as he died, like some possessing ghost jumping away, looking for a new host to feed off.

“We are on our way my son, we are on our way.”

Babbage looked down at the memory card gripped in his fist. Here was the key. Perhaps something of the horror experienced was captured there, left behind in the data, waiting to be slotted into someone else. He wasn’t going to be the first to try it out.

It had something to do with a song, the first hints of which he could still remember sliding through the howl. He’d heard it somewhere before, like a child’s lullaby. If he thought harder he might recognise it.

A bottle clattered across the street behind him and snapped Babbage out of his thoughts. There was nothing there, just shadows.

It was a very simple tune, three notes, four at most, repeated over and over, like a chant.

Footsteps slapped across the street, this time to the side, then a small child’s giggle. Not a happy one.

“Adlai, I believe our young friend has returned. If I can be blunt, and I think that I can, I suggest we vacate the area. It looks like he may have brought along some friends.”

He felt a definite chill tingle up his spine as he looked around. Damp walls, blind alleys that led to dead ends in more ways than one. Garbage. He’d been here before, there was no need to panic. Just think it out, and when the time comes, act.

He let his right hand drift under his coat and grasp the handle of his gun.

The tune in his head was almost together, the four notes running around each other, trying to make themselves fit.

The air seemed to become heavier. Another clattering, this time to the front. There were definitely more of them, and not just here to scare him. He heard the distinct sound of a blade being scraped along a wall.

Sound. The notes. Of course.

Babbage let go of the gun and stood up straight. He’d caught himself just in time, just as the notes were beginning to slot into place, just as the hair on the back of his neck began to tingle in anticipation, just as the air around him seemed ready to form itself into a shape he definitely didn’t want to see.

Another man may have let it all happen, may have let himself simply react. Babbage, however, never felt any compunction to be normal. He stood in the middle of the road, placed his hands over his ears, and began to hum.

Nonsense tunes, drinking songs, notes dragged up from the past or invented on the spot. Scales, lullabies, anything to distract from the notes that had almost overwhelmed him.

Immediately the air began to lift and clear. The growing sense of dread and fear that had crept over him pulled back and away. After thirty seconds the memory of the notes had sunk back down into the depths. He let his hands fall from his ears and looked around.

Nothing. Whoever had been moving in was obviously unable to deal with his unusual behaviour. Not many people could. They’d either backed off to regroup or were waiting for him to make the first move. Mob rule, an easy thing to take advantage of.

“Come Adlai, let me show you how it’s done.”

Babbage cocked his head back and began striding confidently down the middle of the street. One of the hunters would have to react first, and he didn’t want the decision to be an easy one. Make the possibility look like the furthest thing from your mind. Walk too close to one side or the other and whoever lurked there would feel it was their duty to react first. This way, the decision was unclear. Hopefully by the time they realised they’d have to make a choice it would be too late.

He reached the end of the street and turned left. Still nothing. Perhaps they really had gone, warned off by his bizarre behaviour. He thought about the sounds he’d heard creeping up on him as the notes had formed in his mind. Perhaps they’d never been there in the first place.

One set of sounds leading to another, generating fear, opening the links in your brain between a growing feeling and a specific cause, creating new links, forming the sounds in your own head.

A noise behind him stopped all thought and Babbage ducked, swivelled and drew his gun in one movement. A heartbeat later he fired, dropping the hunter where he stood in the middle of the street, only paces away. The figure twitched slowly on the ground, staring open eyed into the rain.

Babbage holstered his gun and turned back down the street as if nothing had happened.

“It’s too early to be debating cause and effect, my young friend. Things are definitely kicking on though, wouldn’t you say?”

“But what about the car crash? The investigation?”

“This is the investigation, Adlai. There is no time to stop now, we have to keep on down the rabbit hole. Besides,” he looked down at the memory card still wrapped in his fist, “There’s a particular man we need to see.”