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Kyle

Jay steps out of the flat, into a dark, wet evening. The pavements are slick with rain. Looking up, he sees a police spinner shooting overhead, lights flashing and sirens wailing. His thick coat keeps him dry. He lets Katie out of the flat, strangely dry without a coat, and locks the door. He looks at the clock - it's 6pm on the Sunday, and he's going round to Kyle's for want of something better to do.

Katie starts for the bus-stop, and Jay can see that her white over-shirt looks a strange green shade in the neon-drenched light. Irritated at the bug, he clicks off the world overview. The sky lightens to a pale grey, the rain stops, the streets miraculously dry, and Jay is looking at naked reality, rather than through his Blade Runner enhanced vision. He mutters a memo to submit a bug report to the patch's developer, and hurries after Katie, who's standing on the overcast street, arms folded, looking at him with one eye raised.

"You know, you'd get a lot more done if you didn't spend half your life pratting around with that rig."
"Yeah, but I get quality over quantity."

A short walk takes them to Katie's house - shared with three female companions, none of whom ever seem to be in when Jay calls. She picks up her rig - a shiny white plastic affair. Jay dislikes the look, but it suits Katie well. As she boots the device, Jay pulls up a GPS-linked map of the local area, and watches her appear as a white glow in close proximity to his own red one. He wanders to the kitchen and makes two mugs of hot, steaming, extra-strong coffee while she checks her voicemail.

Later, after a long bus ride, they arrive at Kyle's disused suburban garage. A ruined block of flats, dating back to the 1960's, stands stark against the grey sky, an Ozymandian tribute to old, failed housing projects. These days, the block is stripped - the doors, carpets and possessions have all been burned, and there's nothing inside but the smell of piss and rats, barring a few homeless people huddled into the crumbling corners, fearing every moment that the whole structure will collapse on them.

The garage used to be used by the residents. Kyle claimed it for his own, and put enough locks on to discourage scavengers. There's water, and a pay meter in the corner keeps him supplied with electricity. His door unlocks as Jay approaches, recognising his rig's key signature, and a buzzer sounds inside. Kyle sticks his head out and smiles through his flip-down magnifying glasses. As usual, he's playing with tech.

The garage is a bizzare hybrid of a bedroom, living room, rubbish dump and engineering works. In the middle is a TV with built-in DVD drive, with a bizzare aerial on top, pointing to a matching device nailed to a celing joist, with a cable running to a mains plug. The TV is playing some obscure new anime which Kyle presumably downloaded recently. Katie sits down and starts watching, while Jay looks at the aerial.

"That's the latest thing I'm playing with. I'm just having trouble with the tracking."
"What is it?" says Jay.
"It's a focussed power beam - an ultra-high-energy microwave that's powering the TV and DVD drive. I'm hoping to get the tracking good enough to be portable. Hey, one day you could be powering your rig off it!"
"What, and risk losing my head if the aerials misaligned? You've got to be joking!"
"No, it's safe. See the ring round the aerial? That's a low-powered, infra-red guidance beam. If that beam gets broken anywhere, it'll cut off the power. Causes one fuck of a spike at the transmitter, but there you go... I'm trying to modulate the infra-red to transfer information too."

Katie stands up, picks up a discarded piece of wire, and moves it slowly into the beam. Instantly, the TV cuts off, only to re-power when the wire is clear. The DVD drive re-boots and starts playing the intro credits of the anime.

"See? It's pretty foolproof."
"What's the response time like?" says Katie.
"Not that great, but getting better. I really need to fab my own chips, but this is a good proof of concept."

Katie snaps the wire through the beam, fast. The TV powers off, but the wire is smouldering, its rubber casement melted and smouldering. The smell of burning sulphur wafts across the garage.

"Not so great, then", says Jay.
"It needs improvement, certainly," replies Kyle.