“When you found this, detective, when you first heard it, did much get in?”

Madigan was leaning forwards, elbows pressed against his knees, staring down at Babbage intently.

“What do you mean?”

“That music you just heard. The music that forced you down onto the floor into that huddle. How much did you hear?”

Babbage slowly got up from the floor and dusted himself off. The music. The few notes repeated over and over, even now he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to tingle. Don’t let it back in.

“Just moments. I tried to block it out.”

Madigan leaned back and gave Babbage an appraising look. “You’re either very lucky or very clever detective. Your instinct kept you alive, as it tends to do out here.”

The flash card bounced up and down in his hand as it jiggled nervously on his knee.

“Not everyone has been so lucky. I was, when I first heard it, which is why I’m still here. But then, I do have some advantages. Others, well, let’s just say that most who have encountered this before are no longer around.”

“So you’ve seen this before?”

Madigan ignored the question and continued with his own.

“When you first heard it, did you see her?”

See her? What was the man on about now?

“No, you haven’t seen her. Not yet. You know what I mean though don’t you, you felt her just now. The fear, the fear that twists into you and forms itself into a figure. Yes, we both felt it. That’s what it’s all about, all of this.”

He seemed to be talking to himself now, muttering the words as they poured out.

“Fear is the child’s bedfellow. Yes, I remember. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen her handiwork, only last time it wasn’t a clone who suffered, it was a friend of mine. A very old friend. She’d helped me build this island out here, we’d worked together helping to break back into the Grid, free the dreamers, open up the world for those of us stuck out here. Revolution.”

He ran his hand over his head.

“But I’m getting carried away. I’ll try to keep this simple detective, but it won’t be easy. Simple is one thing this is not.”

If there was one thing Babbage knew it was when to keep his mouth shut.

“Tell me, detective, what are you afraid of?”

Nothing.

That was the first thing to pop into his head. Nothing scares you. There is no fear, only curiosity, a drive to find things out, explain them, conquer them.

Something in Madigan’s face made him wait. Look a little deeper.

What is fear anyway? Is it just the adrenaline rush, the prickling at the base of your spine, the trembling when faced with – what? The fight or flight response. Fear of death. Running away from predators, those fears carried over on a genetic level. Fear of non-existence.

Madigan was fiddling with his desk again, and Babbage could hear a slight sound piping out through the speakers. Softer now, yet familiar. He watched Madigan place his hands over his ears.

There was something – a memory – standing on a beach as a child. A woman, his mother perhaps, leads him into a small wooden maze. He has to chase her, find her. He runs from door to coloured door, pushing them open and standing back, waiting for her to loom up into view, but it doesn’t happen. Door after door reveals empty space and more doors to try.

The game goes on longer than it should. He can hear her voice teasing him on, leading him deeper inside. A doubt begins to form in his mind, will he be able to find his way back out? But the voice is closer now, he is closer. He keeps on.

Tears of frustration begin to form in his eyes, and he swallows the lump building in his throat. You will not cry. You will not give up. You will find her.

He speeds up, crashing through doors now, one after another, no longer listening to her voice. Working against her now, one door after another, all empty. Finally he crashes through the final door and lands face first on the sand, outside the labyrinth. He passed through it all without finding her. He failed.

He’s alone on the beach, only her voice drifting across to him, urging him back inside to find her. And he knows he has to. He pushes back the door to wander into the trap and sees her figure loom up deep inside the maze. She stands there waiting for him, dressed all in black, a light song on her lips.

“Babbage!”

He opened his eyes to find Madigan standing over him, shaking him by the shoulders.

“Snap out of it man. We were beginning to lose you.”

Babbage straightened up in his chair. What just happened? On moment he’s thinking about Madigan’s words, the next he’s floating away, back into the past.

“I remembered something. Being young. Something very strange.”

Madigan released him and sat back down opposite.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from studying the mind over the years, detective, it’s that memory should never be trusted. Take Alan there,” In the next room, another clone was cleaning up the last of the mess. “No memory at all to speak of. No childhood. Far more trustworthy, really.”

Babbage wasn’t paying any attention. Something important had just happened. Something he’d just seen.

And then it clicked. A door opened.

“Madigan. I saw her.”