Her. That figure in his nightmare, the woman in the maze, he’d encountered her before. Not exactly seen her, but felt her presence. In that broken room with the first suffering victim he’d been led to. She had been there, a part of her at least. She was there in the memory card too, there in his pocket, there in the song that ripped out of it destroying all who heard it. Even that clone had suffered. Anything with a thought in its head was a potential victim of the woman and the song.

“We’re getting closer, Adlai. Connections are being made.”

Babbage walked slowly down the middle of the street, resolutely ignoring the ever present rain that drummed on his hat. His hands were clasped behind his back, pushing him onwards, urging his brain deeper. The answer was somewhere up ahead.

Another clatter in an alley off to the side. Babbage paused and turned to face the darkness of the alley curving away. There was something there, something best left alone. He turned away again and continued on.

“I’m too curious to be frightened, and too occupied to be curious. The dark corners have no power over us, son.”

“Where are we going, exactly?”

Babbage reached into his coat and read from the card Madigan had handed him.

“’Wired for sound. When you require harmonisation.’ It’s not far from here. Nothing’s ever far out here. Everything huddles together for warmth.”

There were footsteps on the rooftop above and behind them.

“Don’t look around my boy, just keep walking. What was it Madigan said about the streets?”

“That they’re dangerous.”

“Yes yes, but we already knew that. No, something else he said. Not about the streets, about the mind, the streets of the mind, all curving in to each other, leading where?”

“The function of the mind is eliminative.”

“Yes, that’s it. Eliminative. We need them to filter out the noise. Noise like those footsteps perhaps. You can become distracted, start imagining things, creating images in your mind about possibilities, dark ones. Then you begin to tighten up, get the emotions involved, the adrenaline starts to flow, the muscles tense and you find yourself waiting for the sound of the next footstep. And somewhere deep inside, perhaps, a lullaby starts creeping around.”

“So we should ignore it?”

“Completely my boy. Whoever or whatever it is will make itself known when it wants too. In the meantime we have better things to think about.”

“Such as?”

“Such as harmonisation. A fine word. A very musical word, really. Suggestions of tension, like a guitar string, or the dying breath of a flute. Focus, control. Like the mind, coiling into a tune. Interesting.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me sir.”

“I’m afraid I’ve lost myself lad, which when you think about it, is one and the same thing. No matter. These connections will become clear in time. Look. It seems we’re here already. The power of the mind again you see.”

They were on another anonymous dark lane, just like all the others. Dark, wet and unwelcoming. It never took long to find your goal out here, so long as it wanted to be found. The Boulevard always had a way of taking you right there.

Babbage wasn’t expecting another neon sign, and didn’t get it. Instead there was a rain streaked painted wall next to a small wooden door, a single button placed in it. Wired for sound. Above the door was a small concrete insignia indented into the wall. MWB. He pressed the buzzer.

Nothing. The only sound was the constant percussion of the rain in the gutters.

“What now, sir?”

“Patience my boy. Good things come etc. There now, listen.”

Above the rain another sound had been introduced, a series of small clicks, dancing along on top of the beat. Then, to round it all off, a creak as the door swung slowly open.

Babbage waited, but nothing else happened and no-one appeared. The room behind the door was a think fog of darkness.

“Well now. After me.”

He hunched his shoulders and walked inside.