“You never did keep your promise,” Mei Lin said suddenly. Cald choked on his food.

    It ely one o break to get uncomfortable ensity of Caldare. As muc  to admin it, Mei Lin urned out to be even more attractive teenager. ures  stronger, more intense.  dancer oned muscles.  more assured. tonigrapless top  s a lot of time in t s midriff tapering off to a slim .  cly darker in t of tnamese restaurant located a stone’s throw from Shek O Beach.

    Cald deep inside   manufactured by  difficult to keep o become transparent so t ever  for ill floation in a er table.

    “It’s a long story. One I only found out myself less ty-eight hours ago.”

    “So you keep saying. I’m listening,” Mei Lin said simply. tense emotional pain on  akingly buried only to  reluctantly dug up again. urned into pools of squid ink, opaque and totally unreadable. as sing, bolstering ticity of ly acquired memories of her?

    “trut knoer t you. You see I ic effect and to study ion.

    “You don’t expect me to believe t do you?  do t any rate, ta of tences, toeing the official line?

    “And t means it didn’t ? You ime I am finishinly-veiled sarcasm.

    “OK, go on.” ter of incredulity in  it didn’t look like it aying po t t broken and o make some progress in making ,  complacent.  trust her.

    “As far as I  Fouler or il yesterday morning o to meet a il te only. e  in t  for Glyp o me, I ill be sleeping rougerloo Bridge.”

    “You were sleeping rough?”

    “Yeaerloo Bridge. ties turned a blind eye. e lived off treets. terrible times but made some lifelong friends.”

    “hy in her eyes.

    “truterloo Bridge ation as a place to abandon uned infants and I guess folks em can not bring itself to murder in cold blood.”

    “No wonder.”

    “No wonder w?”

    “No  of these years.”

    “how do you mean?”

    “Found it impossible to be  like a  of me  kno meeting you soon after t day. o tell  you. I told  since I’d been in love  t day outside t a friend to get me a printout of your scrained fortune teller and feng ser.  ed me I guessed you ill in London.”

    asn’t s on a bit tuff about being unly OK to him.

    “I ed you. I could  of  quitting the agency and coming back here.”

    “I ed to find you but by time I got your family’s p’s o ty agent whe phone.”

    “A. t say a  t?  do you kno Fouler?”

    “ions. In  infamous po ever e, apparently, o bring doire telecommunications netil ties caug refuse. Did some time in a re-education facility and joined ere a resume. In fact, ion. ernational recognition factor and t t it opens certain  t t ime ago and no is funded h Fouler’s own money.”

    “Interesting. A lot of to make sense. Anying arted taking ss at us. Glyp . I managed to break out to treet. t about to kill me or kidnap me, ory about o be some  s in Samp;D but someened to out to publiss darkest secrets in cyberspace.  to reet. I ended up under aterloo Bridge about six years ago tle or no memory of my past.”

    “I see.”

    “In tells me  ter tom console, o me by one Kenzo Yamamoto, a dealer in information. Some say o data blackmail.”

    “o send to you?”

    “At tially a in board I s.”

    “And erloo Bridge to till not buying tory completely.

    “terloo rieve old computer parts from corporate garbage dumps and re-build ers at flea markets and ta residing in sectors on tbase address . At time, I rying to put togeter I could actually use. I iable need to build one but in t turned out I y for t time. No to messaging tbase and arted an online friends time I started ems in a bid to find out about my past but I aler, I got accepted into to try and break out of terloo Bridge after close to four years t up an official netbase as C/C Online Investigations. My forte o find missing people but I also did ot  into grayer territories. After almost a year of borroivity from public infrastructure belonging to botric and Union telecom, I made enougo leave aterloo Bridge. I started going ricok. t e ook t client o. As it  Glyp deliver on and o me. After a lot of rigmarole establis I rustarted doing til about nine  me in enoug to be regularly els around the Union.”

    “So, w happened nine weeks ago?”

    “I got an anonymous job to steal te banking client list of tomo Bank in tokyo, complete  numbers, pass ory and so on. tuff I can usually do , te failure. I rusion detection bots folloo to avoid detection, but inexplicably need all over tin boards. t  I y of ta. ork dried up,”

    “And Kenzo was behing?”

    “God, you are s realize at time but I found out from tar Kenzo recorded before   all.”

    “And t come into your possession?”

    “Yesterday it s  for an upcoming mission. You can imagine, t unity to stop living in foam-padded plastic lockers t counted your life doe. And I am running out of credit ing for Kenzo to surface again rying to retrieve tco my maker. to my past. riggers  to make me remember t day ion of t back, a job at hYDRA.”

    “ refuse.”

    “Basically. And on t a buncivated. Just his mission.”

    “t’s like mnemonic blackmail.”

    “Concise ting it. Yeah!”

    “So you still can’t remember why you never messaged me?”

    “t part of my memory is locked up. Alt it   ain memories. I t find t will probably be locked up forever.”

    “I t. You al, even at school.”

    “So   o deliver tion.

    “I guess. Left ernational Scudies at tsingy in Beijing. It o study in Cer all,  a ss former self and young people looked norture fix, inspiration and everyt kno o do   t I  contact  I ty OK at it once I got over my initial prejudice t computers s a ing so t eresting. One day, toting in a coffee sun diplomatic area in Beijing’s Crict reading some boring book on neural netion.”

    “De itte.”

    “Yes. eresting. Asked me old  to graduate ificial Intelligence and didn’t knoo do . unity to ems.  of questions about my family background and  mainland migrants to s s dead and me an only c of tests folloer granddad and I izens and I ense praining in tokyo and t t o arted off pus of paper, t ing reports on emerging tecrends in Neary-related.”

    “t is interesting,” Caldwell said.

    “Not nearly as amazing as your story. I am sorry you o suffer so muc really e Fouler. And . I oo mucer.”

    “A single special encounter,” Cald knowing whis.

    “Yes. But t was many years ago.”

    “true.”

    “And things change.”

    “tain of is change.”

    “So true.”

    “So are you married? Boyfriend?” Caldured, emboldened by tion of tion.

    “If t counts, you  and only.”

    “Sorry to .”

    “t’s OK. It ill young. I figured career first. Many young girls in Asia do adopt to deal  after ted out t about you?”

    “I er London called Kat  not like a girlfriend. e are more like broter. Sions impossible. People are too complex, too many.”

    “true. ell, it’s getting late s tart brigomorrow.”

    Caldtle to the beach below.