Nick woke to the sound of McCaine banging on his door.
"Come on!" she shouted, "Get up!"
Forgetting he was on the Moon, Nick leapt out of bed and crashed straight into the ceiling.
"Stop jumping around and let me in," McCaine called through the door.
Nursing a sore head, shoulder and arm, Nick opened the door. He had slept in his clothes because he had been quite tired and he generally liked being able to leap out of bed at a moment's notice. Nick checked the time.
"It's seven in the morning," he protested, in the vague hope that McCaine would realise she'd made a mistake and leave him alone.
"I know," she said, "I couldn't sleep."
"I could," Nick grumbled quietly.
"You need to do some clothes shopping," she said, ignoring him, "and I have business to attend to. I'll be having breakfast downstairs, don't hang about." With that, she swanned out.
Nick had a quick shower and, while drying himself with a towel probably more expensive than all the clothes he had, he looked forlornly at the bed.
It was exceedingly comfortable and while he would have loved to have lay upon it one more time, he knew that would only lead to him being woken up by McCaine again and him flying into the ceiling.
Nick found his way down to the breakfast area. He sat at McCaine's table.
"You know, they should make the ceilings padded," he said.
McCaine laughed. "Nah, no point, really. People only make that mistake once in their lives."
"Did you?"
"No," she said, stuffing a sausage into her mouth. "Do you want some breakfast?"
"Oh, no thanks," Nick said, until he actually saw the breakfast buffet.
"It's free," McCaine said, waggling her eyebrows seductively.
"Maybe just a small plate," said Nick, hurrying over to the buffet and picking up the biggest plate he could find.
He piled it full of food and ate with McCaine while indulging in some polite breakfasting chat.
"So, what are your plans for today?" Nick ventured.
"Sadly classified," replied McCaine, "As is everything else you wish to talk about. In other words-"
"-shut up," finished Nick. He gladly obliged and they quickly finished their respective breakfasts.
McCaine checked them out and they stood on the street outside. It looked exactly as it had the night before, although the Earth was in a different place in the sky.
"I'll give you a temporary money card," McCaine said, putting down what looked to be quite a heavy bag to fish it out of her pocket. "Grab yourself some clothes and stuff. Work doesn't start until nine."
She thrust the card into Nick's hand, picked up her bag and walked off. "I'll see you later," she said, "unless I'm dead!"
With that jolly jump start to his day, Nick was on his own. He yawned. He knew that the shops were open all the time on the Moon, because most of them were self service and it was actually cheaper to keep them open than to close them.
He found a clothes shop and purchased a few inoffensive shirts and trousers and a bag to put them all in.
By the time he was done, and he had tried to take his time, he still had an hour to go until he needed to be at work, so he decided to go in anyway. He bounded along the streets and checked which security card he had at hand. He decided that he'd better use his proper one, at least for the first few days.
He waved himself in to the building and proceeded down the walkways into the office. To his surprise, he was not the first one there.
"Who are you?" demanded a man, who rose from his desk and strode towards Nick.
"I'm Nick Hall," he replied, desperately trying to pull his ID card out of his pocket. He held it in front of him defensively.
The man scrutinised the card then glared at Nick. "You're a bra inspector?"
"Oh, no," said Nick, searching his pockets. He pulled out three more cards and checked them.
"Ohh, you're the new admin guy, right?"
"Yeah," said Nick, finally finding his actual ID card. He handed it over.
"Oh, no, don't worry, all those fake IDs are all the proof we need. Has anybody shown you the ropes yet?"
Nick wasn't sure if he wanted to see the ropes and he hoped it a metaphor.
"No," said Nick, guardedly.
"Don't worry, I'm referring to the metaphor. For now." He grinned what he hoped was devilishly. He extended a hand.
Nick awkwardly put his card in his pocket and shook it.
"The name is Agent Clarke."
"Nick Hall."
Clarke shook his head. "You're Agent Hall," he said.
"I am?"
"Yes, you are, Agent Hall."
Nick nodded his head slowly, repeating it to himself in his head.
"Let's do this again," Clarke said. With that, he turned and quickly sat down. He shuffled a few pieces of paper. Nick looked dumbly at him.
"Come on, let's do it again, you go outside and... oh, you're hopeless, come on, sit here, I'll show you how."
Clarke stood and walked towards the door. When he was level with Nick he said, "This is essential job training. Pay attention." Then he marched out of the door.
Nick looked at it blankly and Clarke marched back in.
"Say 'Who are you?'"
Nick said, "Who are you?"
Quickly, Clarke whipped a card out of his pocket and thrust it into Nick's face. He recoiled slightly.
"Agent Clarke," he said, narrowing his eyes, "I'm with SIO."
Nick blinked.
"See?" Clarke said, dropping his card, "Like that! And you're always Agent Hall. You don't have a first name."
"Okay, got it," said Nick.
"Excellent, Hall, you'll do well."
Clarke went and sat back at his desk. Nick followed him slowly.
"But I thought I was just doing... admin stuff? Filing and all that. I'm not really a secret agent."
"Oh, you'll have to learn the ropes here first, but if you've got what it takes in here then you'll be trained and thrown the lions. If you want, of course."
Nick thought that sounded like excellent scope for promotion into the face of danger, which meant excellent danger pay.
"So, what shall I get started with?"
Clarke patted a large box of files. "These expense accounts have been piling up since the old admin guy went to infiltrate a terrorist cell on the Jupiter Main Station."
"Oh, I know how to do those," Nick said, "I did some yesterday."
"Excellent," said Clarke, "there's ten more boxes."
"Great," said Nick, without that much enthusiasm.
"Say, have you been issued with your standard equipment yet?"
Nick, who had so far been given nothing but fake ID's and slightly dodgy money said, "I don't think so."
"Okay, I'll order you a laptop, a phone, a money card and a gun."
"A gun?!"
"Nah, not really."
Clarke rose from his desk. "I'm going to the café on the way, want anything?"
Nick, who wasn't exactly sure if he should be treating Clarke as a superior or as someone slightly above him said, "No, thanks. I'll go later."
"Have fun with the accounts, then," Clarke said, stepping out.
Nick grabbed a box and settled down to read some inventive lies about where secret agents spent the government's money.

* * *

The day passed slowly, with about half of it spent eating something sugary or drinking something even more sugary.
At lunch, he kicked back and closed his eyes.
Clarke had been true to his word and supplied Nick with all the standard issue equipment, including a gun-shaped lighter, which Nick wisely decided to hide at the bottom of someone's else's drawer.
Nick was about to get up and go get some cake when his phone rang. He wouldn't have even know it was ringing, had it not been in his pocket and making a loud noise.
By now, the office was quite busy, with a few regulars in sitting like him and a lot more people milling about.
He hurriedly took out his phone and answered it, while wilting under a torrent of stares.
"Hello?" he said, hoping this wasn't a refurbished phone and he wasn't getting the first of many phone calls from someone who never updated their phone records because they didn't know how to.
"It's me."
Nick sat down and spoke quietly into the receiver.
"Er, I'm sorry, I just got this phone, I don't-"
"It's McCaine."
"Oh, hi, how did-"
"Shut up," said McCaine. "Can you talk?"
"I'm in the office," said Nick, looking around.
"Orange is dead."
Nick kept his cool and said, "I'm sorry? As in... the agent?"
"Yes. Don't say anything stupid, I don't want anyone else to know. I was here tracking the uranium dealers and... well, I don't want to talk about it over the phone. We need to meet up. I'll see you outside the place we last saw each other in twenty minutes."
"Okay," Nick said, trying not to sound worried.
"Bring cake." McCaine hung up.
Nick put his phone back in his pocket carefully, trying to look casual. He thought this was the worst time to learn how to look casual, being sat in a room full of spies. He looked around and saw nobody paying much attention to him.
He turned his laptop off and, deciding it would look a bit suspicious if he took his bag with him, stood up to leave. He strode towards the door and managed to reach it by the time Clarke said, "I'll have a tea!"
Nick mumbled something incoherent and stepped out, without looking back.
He bit his nails as he casually surfed the fast lane to the building's café. He soon thought better of himself and tried to calm down.
There was something about secret agents telling you other secret agents were dead and keeping it a secret that made Nick very nervous. Especially as this was only his second day.
He bought a slice of cake and a coffee and headed back to the hotel. Nick found drinking coffee while walking on the Moon was a lot harder than it was on Earth. When Nick's coffee flew out of the top of his cup and he had to catch it all, he put the lid back on and decided to save it for later.
He bounded down the streets with urgency, knowing he had plenty of time but hurrying anyway.
"Hall," McCaine said, nodding, when he approached her loitering outside the hotel, smoking.
"I bought you some cake," he said, holding it out for her.
"And a drink, too," said McCaine, taking it from his hand, flipping off the lid and taking a drink. "We need to go somewhere."
She handed the coffee back to Nick and looked into his eyes for the first time. Nick could see something there he'd not seen before. It was fear.
"I'm glad you came," she said. "Things are messy. I don't know who to trust."
Nick, who wasn't sure he should be involved with dead spies on his second day said, "But I've only been here two days! How can you trust me?"
"That's exactly the reason why. Come on, I don't want to hang around, I don't feel too great."
She turned and began to walk off.
Nick looked at his coffee, knowing full well what would happen if he tried to walk off with it. He didn't fancy picking the lid off the floor, so he drained the mug, which was slightly too hot to be draining.
Nick caught up with her. "Look, I don't really think I should be getting involved. I'm just an admin guy."
"Nobody gets hired to save the world," McCaine said.
"The world?"
"Well, maybe the world."
They turned a corner and McCaine led them into a shopping complex.
"So what's going on? Who-"
"Shut up. We'll talk when I get in my car."
They walked through the complex and into the car park, where McCaine got into a large dark blue car. It was quite unshapely and looked more like two cars squished together into one, less the amount of wheels.
"We're going over the surface to Providence. We'll catch a ride to Earth from there."
They got in and Nick looked around the car. There were many more computer displays than in the cars you got on Earth, as well a joystick instead of a steering wheel.
McCaine started the engine and they pulled out of the space, drove around a few narrow lanes and emerged onto the streets of the Moon.
"Why are we going to Earth?" Nick asked.
"Because we're on a case. I found Orange in one of the back rooms of the mining station one of the uranium smuggler's was working at. He had a briefcase with him. A black one."
McCaine looked sidelong at Nick.
"You think it's the one that got taken out of the building?"
"I don't know. Inside is a lot of Orange's crap but there's a few notes on the man I was tracking. A lot more information than I was ever given."
Nick said, "So you're saying Orange knew about him but... didn't tell you?"
McCaine nodded. They approached a set of large metal doors, with the word's 'Airlock', written above them. They opened slowly as they got closer.
"Yes," McCaine said, "I think so. And I think I know why. The uranium smuggler is old informant of Orange's."
Nick frowned. He didn't like this was going and it was going in the direction of a murder mystery.
McCaine drove inside the airlock and the doors began to close behind them. A few faces glanced at them from a small room perched high up the airlock.
"Orange was shot, quite a few times. I think some other people were, as well. There was a lot of blood. I found an SIO issue pistol on the floor."
Nick hated to ask but said, "Was it Orange's?"
"No. Someone else SIO was there."
The front airlock doors began to open, sucking a little dust outside into the Moon's atmosphere.
McCaine continued, "It looks like it was done late last night. And there's been no news from the other guy since. It looks like something big and nasty is going on. I can't trust anyone."
She turned to Nick and smiled wanly. "Except you, of course."
Nick sat back in his seat and watched the world go by. "This is a lot to take in on my second day," he said. "So what are we doing now?"
"Heading to Earth to search Orange's house before anyone else does. Or, catch someone else doing it."
The roads outside the domes were rockier and more uneven. The car took it all in stride, a small dashboard display informing Nick that it was no longer in 'City Mode' and was now running in 'Surface Mode'. Nick also noticed the oxygen display, which read '54%'.
"You might want to stock up on air," Nick said helpfully.
"I don't think so," McCaine replied, "It's not my car."
Nick nodded. That made sense.
McCaine said, "The files I took are in my bag, you can have a read through if you like." She rummaged around awkwardly and produced a few files, which she handed to Nick.
"Something to do on the drive," she said, "it's about thirty minutes to Providence."
They sat in almost complete silence for the journey there, only talking when Nick asked what the various acronyms meant and, in one instance, what Orange's handwriting meant.
The files were mostly notes on the whereabouts of Anthony Boss, an experienced space miner who was a member of a uranium trading gang. The file linked Boss and Orange through some records of meetings they'd had.
"This doesn't look like it was written by Orange," said Nick.
"Indeed. I would be very interested to find out who wrote it and why it was left there. The second man must have attracted some attention and had to run."
Nick read on, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Providence gleamed in front of them, the sun reflecting from it's large glass domes. A vapour trail gave away a spacecraft leaving.
Nick handed the files back to McCaine, who tucked them safely in her bag.
"Providence is nice," McCaine said, "I'm sure you'll like it for the hour we'll be there."
"Great," said Nick, who just wanted to get out of the car.

* * *

McCaine rolled the car slowly down the streets, because a very large sign told her to do so. Nick looked around in awe.
"Trees? Here?"
"Isn't it nice?" said McCaine, without much enthusiasm.
Nick thought so. There were patches of grass with benches on, flower beds and low gravity fountains, which were quite interesting to watch.
They drove down the wide main street, taking a turn towards a large building situated towards the edge of the dome.
"This is the spaceport. We'll ditch the car here and take the first flight back to Earth. Hopefully there'll be one going direct to England."
McCaine parked the car in the underground car park, being sure to leave it unlocked.  They entered the spaceport proper. It was busy, with organised lines queuing at ticket machines.
Fragments of conversations met Nick's ears.
"A single to London, please."
"I'm sorry, I did not understand your request."
"Single to London."
"I'm sorry-"
"I WANT A SINGLE TO-"
"I'm sorry, I did not understand-"
McCaine turned to Nick and said, "This could take a while."
They got in line and waited.
McCaine tapped her foot impatiently. After almost a minute of waiting, in which three people had got in line behind them, she said, "I just want to sit down and fly home. Come on."
McCaine left the line and strode directly towards the terminal.
"Tickets and..."
"Out of my way," said McCaine, showing a card to the security officer, "I'm flying out and I'm already late."
"Er," said the guard, inspecting McCaine's pilot ID, "you really should be using the other-"
"I told you," she said, raising her voice, "I'm late. What's your name? Come on, hurry this up."
The guard desperately tried to hide his name tag and then relented immediately. He said, "The quickest way to the terminals is through that door there."
McCaine eyed the door, which had an electronic security system.
"I have something to get from inside there, first," she said, barging past him and dragging Nick into the terminal lobby.
"Copilot!" Nick said as McCaine pulled him past the guard.
She looked at the departures board and saw a flight leaving for Earth in fifteen minutes. They walked towards the terminal it was departing from.
"We should just be able to walk onboard."
They approached the boarding ramp, with Nick tailing McCaine nervously. He'd never illegally boarded a spaceship before and he hadn't really had time to prepare.
As they reached the entrance to the ramp, a security guard stepped out and stopped them.
"Excuse me," he said, "but has that baggage been checked? Where's your security tag?"
McCaine regarded him coldly for a moment. She said, "Yes, thank you, it has been checked and it took long enough too. I don't want to have to wait any longer to get sat down on that plane. What's your name?"
The man recoiled in horror.
"Oh, I do apologise, please, right this way."
He led them to the plane, where they slipped into first class and found the worst seats they could, which were still a marked improvement on the seats they'd sat in on the way there.
"I'm going to try and sleep," said McCaine, "get me some champagne if they bring any around."
The flight to Earth was smooth and relaxing. McCaine kept her eyes closed throughout the entire journey, even taking and drinking the champagne Nick acquired with zero vision required.
They landed and disembarked, ambling into the large glass expanse of the London Central Spaceport, which perched precariously on top of two large skyscrapers.
McCaine yawned and rubbed her eyes. "We're lucky, you know. Security is a lot tighter on Earth flights. They don't care about space flights to Earth, though, which is lucky."
They strode towards the exit lifts, which were both numerous and large, having to service an entire spaceport. Most were express lifts to the ground floor.
Nick didn't like the look of the express lifts, having a barely tolerant attitude towards regular ones.
"Why don't they care about Earth flights?"
"Because why would anyone smuggle anything to Earth? It's cheaper and easier to get all your guns, drugs, bombs and prostitutes right here."
Nick nodded. "Makes sense. Are we taking the express elevator?"
"No," McCaine replied, to Nick's relief, "I don't feel like it."
They stepped in to a lift and descended. At the bottom, they stepped out and began the short walk through the exit corridor outside. The entire spaceport was one way. There was a skyscraper you entered to get in and one to get out.
It was a very effective model of port design but it did not really lend itself to many applications in the world, as not many places could afford to build two extremely large towers just to funnel people about.
"Don't look back," McCaine said as they walked. Nick glanced into a shop but did not dare turn his head to look.
"Why not?"
"Because this airport has a security system based on anyone walking in the incorrect direction and it's based on faces. If yours is visible to the cameras behind us, they've got your picture on record. And I don't want your picture to be on record."
"Me neither," said Nick, who had heard a statistic last week that said, 'Every day, an average person will be photographed three hundred times and their movements will be tracked by twenty five global corporations.'
They exited the spaceport and made their way towards the London Underground. Even before they reached the steps they could hear the screams of the trains as they were shot out of the tunnels. The entire subway network was magnetically powered, fulfilling many 21st century people's secret desire for the London Underground to be more like a rollercoaster.
As they walked down the steps, they passed a large sign which said, 'London Central Spaceport Station.' Underneath it said, 'You must be at least 12 years old to ride.'
"Did you know," McCaine said suddenly, "That there used to be a height restriction on the magnetic subway trains?"
"No," said Nick, who wondered why anyone would know that, or care.
"It was changed because the vertically challenged threatened some very grave actions unless they were allowed to ride it."
Nick scoffed. "They changed it because of a bunch of angry midgets?"
"Well, yes. Since humankind expanded in to space, our population has grown extremely rapidly. Even the most minor of minorities have large and influential political groups."
"Sounds like a lot of trouble for people like you," Nick said.
"People like us," McCaine corrected. She produced her London travel card and swiped herself through the barrier, before flicking it back to Nick.
He caught it clumsily and hoping nobody else had seen, swiped it and walked through the revolving barrier.
"And it's more trouble than you can imagine. Say the percentage of a select minority that is likely to want to bomb places is so incredibly, stupidly small, nobody would ever even care to work it out. Well when you have a big enough population of select minority, quite a few insane people start bombing embassies demanding the right for their three legged freak people to live alone on the moon of Saturn because they were mutated by radioactive material mined from there."
They strolled down the platforms, with McCaine scanning the various directions and departure boards, while Nick realised he had a new found appreciation for the signage. It had evolved throughout the years to offend absolutely nobody.
"What do you do about people who are so mortally offended by the written word that they'll start killing people?"
"They're so few in number at the moment that they don't really do anything. They can't find anybody insane enough to help them. It'll become a problem one day, but I'm sure we'll all be communicating telepathically by then."
Nick considered this. "What about the people who hate telepathy?"
"Shut up."
McCaine led them towards a train people were rushing to board.
"We'll wait," she said. The doors closed and the lights inside dimmed, turned red and the train suddenly shot off into the gaping dark hole of the tunnel. Nick blinked.
"I like to have the time to find something to hold on to," McCaine explained.
They waited for the next train to arrive. It wouldn't take long.
"So where are we going?" Nick asked.
"Harrow, to see a man. I need a sit down," she replied. They sat on a bench, McCaine dropping her bag between her and Nick.
"Are you okay?" Nick asked, peering at McCaine. "You don't look to well."
McCaine sighed. "That's exactly why we're going to see a man. He's a doctor I can trust. I think I have radiation poisoning."
Nick recoiled in horror. "You have what?!"
"I think I found some of the uranium when I found Orange's body."
Nick leaned closer so they could talk quieter, but not too close.
"Oh, you can come closer, it's not going to hurt you."
Nick felt a wave of remorse wash over him. Thinking back, he realised McCaine had been suffering the effects since he had met her at the hotel. Her symptoms were getting worse, though.
"It... it was just in a briefcase, just a big grey lump. It was lying open, on a table opposite Orange's body. I walked over to have a look and then realised what it was and why the room was such a mess, nobody wanted to stay around there."
"Jesus," said Nick, who had been briefed all about the dangers of radiation exposure during his safety induction the day previous.
McCaine leaned closer to Nick. "I really don't feel well, Hall. I just feel so... tired. And sick. Even the lights underground hurt my head. It's not far now, Nick but I just want you to know, I trust you, okay? And I want you to trust me."
"I trust you," said Nick, who rapidly got the impression McCaine was either going to reveal a terrible secret or die suddenly.
"Good," she said, "because... if I throw up on you... I want you to know I'm sorry."
Nick smiled, which he thought was the correct amount of mirth.
Presently, another train pulled up. McCaine rose unsteadily and she and Nick walked to the train. They waited for the disembarking passengers to finish disembarking and quickly got on. McCaine directed them to some isolated seats with plenty of sturdy looking poles to hold on to. They sat down and braced themselves.
"Remember what I said, Hall," McCaine said, grinning.
Nick smiled back weakly, pulling his legs away. He wasn't quite sure what radiation sickness entailed, but he didn't want to get too close incase it was messy.
The doors closed, the lights dimmed and turned red and the train was accelerated with immense force towards Harrow. Being a direct and very express train service, the tunnel descended deep underground, below the rest of the subway network.
It made Nick's ears pop when his brain wasn't trying to fly out of them.
McCaine had closed her eyes.
The train quickly went from acceleration to a nice cruising speed. After a few seconds, this turned into rough deceleration, which caught Nick by surprise.
After it had pulled up and stopped and Nick and McCaine had got off, McCaine said to Nick, "Remind me to sort you out with a full set of fake cards when we're next in the office. I actually keep a standard pack, incase I need to ditch my gear."
"Alright," Nick said.
As they swiped their pass through the exit and proceeded up the stairs, she continued, "I find having a full set of fake cards essential. This entire world runs on them, although most people combine most of their money and travel cards onto their government ID cards, I like to keep it simple and keep them separate."
Nick nodded. He thought McCaine was talking to hide how ill she was feeling, because she certainly looked ill.
"Also, you should probably ditch your government ID card. They can track your movements on pretty much the entire planet with it."
Nick's mouth dropped open. "Really?! I thought that was just a stupid rumour."
"Oh, it was, a stupid rumour started by the government. They faked a load of stupid conspiracy theories to discredit the idea completely. Yes, those government ID cards are packed with the latest technology. They're even thinking of rolling out ones with cameras that can send pictures when they're in wireless range."
"Which is everywhere," noted Nick.
"Exactly. I'm not sure why they want to do it, though, unless the insides of people's pockets are crucial to global security."
Nick doubted they were, but he couldn't put anything past them now, since he'd learned they could track his movements anywhere.
They stepped out into the brisk Harrow evening. The sun had well and truly set on the planet, with the sunset masked by the distant clouds. Street lights lit the roads with an orange glow and car's headlights cast moving shadows on everything.
McCaine leaned over a wall and threw up.
"Oh, oh Jesus," she spluttered, "This always happens when I go outside."
She wiped her mouth and adjusted her hair. She said, "Stomach tightening, I'm sure. Come on."
She thrust her hands into her pockets and strode off down the street. Nick hurried after her, trying to ignore the fact she'd just been sick all over a confused but slightly warmer homeless man.
"God, it's freezing," said Nick, "I thought global warming was supposed to, y'know, make things warmer."
"That's just a theory," McCaine said.
Nick said nothing, hoping she would fill the gap in the conversation with the real and highly guarded answer to the Earth's climate and pollution problems. She was not, for once, forthcoming with global secrets.
Hearing Nick's teeth chattering, McCaine said, "It's not far. Infact, it is very conveniently close to the express station."
They rounded a corner and walked down a short street, before turning another, walking a few steps and stopping.
"Here we go," said McCaine. They were stood outside a small terraced house with a small bronze plaque on the wall, indicting it was a place of important business or the home of someone who had a very high opinion of themselves.
The second floor room was lit.
"The doctor appears to be in," Nick said.
"For some people, the doctor is always in."
McCaine walked up the path and pressed the buzzer. There was a moment's wait and then a voice said, "McCaine?!"
"Yes. And a friend. I need to come in, right now."
The door opened and McCaine waltzed inside. As Nick entered, he scanned the wall for signs of a camera, microphone or a speaker. He could see nothing but brickwork.
This was no ordinary doctor, Nick thought.
Inside, Nick raced up the stairs after McCaine, who had already begun shouting.
“What do you mean, you're leaving? I need you!”
“I'm sorry, McCaine, I'm sure you can see another doctor. Things are getting too serious for me to stay here. People like you keep turning up and bringing trouble.”
Nick reached the top of the stairs. The doctor, dressed in a full length black coat said, “Who the hell are you?”
“He's with me, we're on a case,” McCaine said.
The doctor stared incredulously at Nick and then McCaine.
“You see?” he said, raising his voice. “You see why I have to go? You crazy people keep bringing in any old puppet you like. It's not good for my business or reputation.”
McCaine deflated. “I'm sorry, King, I didn't know where else I could go.”
The doctor, who was apparently called King, softened up a little when he looked into McCaine's eyes. “You don't look well,” he said. “Have you been shot?”
“No,” McCaine said, “I've got radiation poisoning.”
“You have? How on Earth did you get that? Did you not get a space flight safety induction?”
Nick bit his lip.
“I just sort of stumbled across some uranium...” she said weakly.
“Okay, okay,” said King, who was used to dealing with the kind of things that afflicted secret agents. “I don't even want to know how you just stumble across uranium. Sit down, I'll get you some pills. Are you alright?” he asked Nick.
“Fine, thanks.” he said, “I'm just an admin guy,” he added, hopefully.
King laughed while he walked towards the back room. “I was just a doctor, once.”
The doctor walked out, leaving Nick and McCaine alone.
“We got here just in time, by the looks of it,” McCaine said, pointing at the bags King had been carrying.
“Why is he leaving?” Nick asked.
McCaine shrugged. “I don't know. Sounds like something has spooked him. Maybe he's had a few dangerous patients, recently. He's a sort of informal doctor for a lot of us, when we don't need questions asked and he needs a lot of money. He's the only person with my medical record, which is written on paper. Not under my name, obviously.”
King returned with a handful of boxes. “Right,” he said, setting them on a small table. He turned and poured a cup of water from the cooler. “Here you go. How long were you exposed to the radiation?”
“Just a few minutes, before I realised.”
King shook his head slowly. “Acute radiation sickness,” he said, “these pills should help you out. They will treat the symptoms and help you fight off any infections you could get as a result of your reduced white blood cell count. There's not much more I can do, really, it's mostly up to your body.”
McCaine sighed. “I hate it when I can't rely on medicine.”
King gathered up his bags and locked the back room door. “Come on, there's nothing more I can do for you except say this: get some rest and don't expose yourself to any more radiation for a while.”
McCaine rose unsteadily. “Thanks, Doc.”
They followed him down the stairs and out of the building. While he locked the front door, McCaine paused and said, “Good luck, wherever you're going.”
“You too, I'm sure you're off to disregard my advice right now.
McCaine smiled and walked off.
“Bye!” hazarded Nick as they stepped off the path and into the street. He jogged to catch up with McCaine, who was marching back towards the train station while fiddling with one of the boxes the doctor had given her.
“I thought people with radiation sickness were supposed to rest!” he said when he'd caught up.
“They're not supposed to go looking for uranium, either,” she said, giving up on the fiddling and tearing the box apart. Inside was a bottle, which McCaine unscrewed and tipped up into her hand.
She held it completely upside down and two pills dropped into her hand, a blue one and a red one. She popped the blue one into her mouth and chewed, which released a mixture of water and saliva gland stimulants. She then popped the red one in and swallowed.
“Did you know, that people used to have to use their own water when swallowing pills?” she said.
“Really? Medicine sure has come a long way!”
They turned a corner and a large black car came roaring past, drawing the envious gaze of McCaine.
“I wish I had a car,” she pouted, “I might have to get one later.”
“Where are we going?” Nick asked, not wanting to find out how she intended to acquire one.
“Orange's house. At least, the one he wanted the SHA to contact him at. I'm relying on the fact that he didn't intend to die and wouldn't have really hidden anything important.”
They walked into the London Underground, which was something of a mixed blessing for Nick. On the one hand, he didn't have to be an accessory to McCaine stealing a car, but on the other, he had to be launched at extreme g-force through a narrow underground tunnel by magnets and electricity. And the person he'd be sitting next to was suffering from radiation poisoning.
“How do you feel?” Nick asked coyly as they descended into the subway.
“I'm not going to throw up on you,” McCaine replied coldly.
They entered routinely, which is to say they had no problems and not that they entered the subway in a conventional fashion and boarded an extremely convenient train, which was just pulling up and dispensing a few ill looking passengers and a lot more angry looking ones.
The rest of the journey was quite uneventful, with few words being exchanged between them as Nick assumed she was feeling to ill to talk.
This was far from the truth, as the pills King had given McCaine were highly effective and slightly illegal and were mostly used by miners who needed to work to live and couldn't afford to waste time 'relaxing' and 'not being exposed to continued radiation.'
They arrived in Camden and caught a taxi to Orange's house.
“This is it...” said McCaine, looking up.
Nick didn't want to say something stupid so he kept his mouth shut. They were stood in front of a large house, four storeys. It was made of what looked like traditional stone and sported quite old architecture. It was conceivable that someone own that entire house, but also that it was turned into smaller flats for people who wanted it to look like they owned an entirely too large house.
They approached the front door and Nick saw a vast array of buttons and labels, which indicated to Nick that it was indeed flats.
“Does Orange have a family?” Nick asked suddenly.
“No,” replied McCaine. After a moment's thought, she added, “At least, not that I know of.”
After scanning the list of names, McCaine found the one she wanted. “It looks like he's on the fourth floor.”
Nick could have guessed. “How do we get in? Got a handy fake ID for that?”
McCaine glared at Nick. “No. I'll have to do it the old fashioned way.”
Exactly how old fashioned, Nick wondered. Was he going to be scaling a drain pipe? Did this house even have drain pipes?
McCaine pressed a button at random.
“Hello?” came a voice.
“Hello! It's your mum!”
There was a silence at the other end of the intercom and then a voice said, “My mum is dead.”
“Oh, wrong button!” McCaine crowed chirpily, pressing another button.
“Hello?”
“Hello! It's your mum!”
“M-mum? You... you came back? I can't believe-”
“Oh, wrong button!”
She tried four buttons until someone said, “Oh, hi mum, didn't know you were coming over, come on up!”
The front door buzzed and opened and Nick and McCaine walked in.
Before they proceeded upstairs, McCaine scanned the lobby. She saw a cupboard door, painted the same as the walls and pulled at it. It wasn't locked.
Inside was a selection of electrical equipment, which was recording all the surveillance cameras saw.
“I think I'll be taking this,” McCaine said, pulling out a few small storage drives and disabling the rest of the security system. “I'm amazed they never think to lock these. I've done this more times than I care to remember.”
“Remind me never to live in a block of flats...” Nick said as McCaine pulled various important looking cables out of various important looking sockets.
With security taken care of, Nick called the lift while McCaine walked past him and began climbing the stairs.
“I don't feel like the lift,” she said.
Nick sighed and followed. They reached the top, with Nick slightly out of breath and walked towards what McCaine assured him was Orange's flat. Dipping into her bag, McCaine produced a keycard.
“You can't fake these,” she said, “They contain Orange's blood. They're a pain in the arse to use, though, because you need to make new ones every few weeks, but they're almost unfakable.”
“Almost?”
“Well, nothing's perfect.”
“So...” Nick swallowed. “You got that...”
McCaine rolled her eyes. “From looting his corpse, yes. I also got a new mobile phone if you want one.”
“No. thanks,” said Nick weakly.
McCaine slid the card into the slot and a lovely green lit on the card slot lit up. McCaine pushed open the door and they stepped inside.
“Ooh, this is nice,” Nick said.
“We don't have time for nice,” McCaine said grimly. “If this is an inside job, as I think it is, this will be the first place they'll check. I don't think anyone else has been here yet, because the security footage is, or rather, was still here. There's nothing spooks love more than hours of footage to pore over while sat at home.”
Nick hoped that wasn't true. He liked to watch old science fiction movies at home.
“Have a look around,” McCaine said, striding off towards the bathroom, “but don't move anything. If you find something interesting, come and tell me.”
Doing as he was told, Nick looked around. The flat was large but sparsely decorated, with mismatched furniture dotted about nothing in the way of any truly personal belongings.
Deciding to make himself useful, he considered all the places he would hide something important. He checked underneath the table and behind the chairs. Nothing. He wandered into the bedroom and pulled up the mattress. Again, nothing.
Perhaps secret agents have far better hiding places than everyone else, thought Nick.
He searched the wardrobe and found a shoebox with a pair of shoes resting on top of it. He lifted the shoes off and peeked inside.
“McCaine!” he said, “I think you'd better come and look at this!”
He'd always wanted to say that, so he was beaming by the time McCaine walked into the room.
“You've not found his porn stash, have you?” she said.
Nick handed the shoebox over.
Inside was nothing but photos. McCaine picked them up and rifled through them. They appeared to be of Agent Orange and someone else, who looking very close to him. They were often seen laughing or hugging.
“He looks like...”
“... family,” finished Nick. “But I thought you said he had no family.”
“That's just what his record says. It doesn't mean it's true.”
McCaine put the shoebox back in the wardrobe and dropped the photos into her bag. “He's been with the SHA for 20 years and he always maintained he had no family. This is weird...”
“Maybe he was trying to protect him.”
“It's a lot of work to keep that kind of thing off your SHA file. He must have really wanted to keep him off there. Don't you think he looks familiar?” McCaine said, pointing at the person who wasn't Orange in the pictures.
Nick didn't.
While McCaine searched through the rest of the house, she told Nick to keep an eye out of the front window, facing on to the street. He did so reluctantly.
“Come on, you should let me search for things. I found those photos!” he called into the other room with an air of petulance.
“Shut up!” was McCaine's shouted reply from the bathroom. “I'd have found it eventually!”
Nick sulked by the window, scanning the London horizon, or rather, the buildings in the way of the horizon. Towers dominated the skyline and even four floors up, could not see anything far in the distance without a large building getting his way. The sky was dark, with a tint of orange as the city's light output bounced off the layer of atmospheric pollution surrounding much of the planet.
On the street below, a black car, altogether much sleeker and lower than the car he'd been in on the Moon pulled up outside the building.
“Hey, look at these,” McCaine said, walking out of the bathroom. “Orange had some radiation meds in his cabinet. That's pretty suspicious, don't you think?”
Nick leaned away from the window. “Two people just got out of a car outside. One of them was that doctor, King.”
McCaine quickly peeked out of the window. “Oh, fucking shit,” she said, turning around quickly and heading towards the door. “Come on.”
“What's going on? Why is King here?”
“You think I know? You think I know anything that's going on?!” McCaine shouted back. “All I know is, it's probably not going to be a good idea for us to find out!”
McCaine wrenched open the front door in time to hear a large bang from downstairs.
Quickly, McCaine pushed Nick back into the apartment.
“They blew the door up! Shit, they are not fucking about. We've got to get out of here.”
“Did you know who that other guy was?” Nick asked. “He didn't look familiar.”
“No,” said McCaine, pulling open a window to the rear. She and Nick looked down. It was a long drop with a very hard surface at the end. Nick swallowed.
“Come on, I think we can break in to another flat and hide in there for a while.”
McCaine clambered out of the window and onto the large cills which extended around the building. “Thank goodness for ancient architecture, eh?” she grinned, edging around the building. Nick followed nervously, hugging the wall.
Suddenly struck by a thought, McCaine hissed, “Nick, throw these back inside and close the window.
Nick took the anti radiation medication King had given McCaine and tossed it on the floor inside, before pulling the window down.
McCaine and Nick edged along the side of the building, thankful the wind was low. The cills were old and uneven, with the edges eroded away by time. They reached the window of the next flat.
McCaine peered inside and saw nobody, although the lights were on.
“We'll have to go in here,” she said, seeing no way around the corner of the building without acrobatics. She pulled a pistol out of her inside pocket and a silencer.
“I'm going to blow through this window, we should be safe inside there,” she said. As she moved to screw the silencer onto the pistol, a brief gust of wind rocked them. She flung out her arms to keep her balance, dropping the silencer.
When Nick was certain she wasn't going to fall, he resumed breathing.
“Shit,” she said. “Nothing for it, then.”
She pointed the gun at the window, in a style favoured only by gangsters and movie directors and waited.
Nick was not appreciating his extended stay on the edge of a four storey building. The wind was picking up occasionally, although it was pushing them against the wall, it was still extremely unnerving to feel any kind of wind at all in such a position.
“Come on,” hissed Nick, his heart racing.
“Shut up,” McCaine hissed back, leaning to check inside the window again.
Presently, there was a loud noise to Nick's left, from inside Orange's flat. McCaine pulled the trigger a few times, punching holes in the window. She then flicked the gun around, flicking on the safety and ejecting the cartridge in the chamber before smashing the end of the gun into the window, creating a hole. She moved closer and knocked a hole big enough to crawl though, before pulling herself inside.
She pointed the gun randomly behind her while helping Nick through.
Turning to face the direction of her gun, McCaine looked around. There was nobody inside.
“Brush that broken glass off the window cill,” McCaine ordered quietly, reloading her gun and edging around the corner into the bedroom.
“Oh, fucking hell, you scared me!” McCaine said.
“I scared YOU?! You just broke into my flat and pointed a gun at me!”
“Look, don't worry, we're not here to take anything or kill anyone.”
Nick pulled the curtains shut on the window and walked nervously into the other room.
McCaine lowered her gun, although the man standing there near his window still had his hands raised.
“We don't mean any harm, we're with the police,” she said, which wasn't too big of a lie for her, Nick thought.
“Well, what do you want?” he said, his eyes fixed on McCaine.
“Just to stay here for a while. We'll be gone, soon.”
The owner of the flat put his hands down slowly. “So... I'm not going to die?”
“Oh, yes,” said McCaine, who saw the look in his eyes and quickly added, “Eventually, I mean. Not right now.”
Nick looked at McCaine and shook his head. “Too soon,” he said.
“Too soon,” she agreed.
They sat and waited in the flat, with McCaine keeping a wary eye on the door and still holding her gun.
The owner of the flat, who's name turned out to be Julian, asked plenty of questions which McCaine refused to answer.
“How come the alarms didn't go off? I heard a few bangs but thought nothing of it until you broke in.”
“I don't know,” McCaine said. Nick glared at her.
McCaine had turned the light off in the lounge, so as not to draw attention to the hole in the window. She peeked out of the curtain, waiting for them to leave. It took a while.
Nick said nothing regarding the case in front of Julian, who insisted that he couldn't go to bed and forget all about them, choosing instead to sit in the dark in the living room, drinking beer.
“So, are you the good guys?” he asked.
“Of course,” Nick said.
“Do the bad guys ever think they're bad?” McCaine said to them both.
“I suppose not,” said Julian.
Presently, two figures appeared out of the front of the building and walked straight into the car. There was no delay as they drove off. McCaine sighed with relief.
“That was close,” she said. “I think they followed me with those pills. I think...” McCaine glanced at Julian, “... the doctor is heavily involved. Stuff like GPS receivers in medicine bottles is pretty low.”
Nick said, “If they tracked us with the medicine bottle, aren't you worried about the medicine itself?”
McCaine regarded Nick for a moment, then coolly walked into the bathroom and proceeded to be sick. Julian offered Nick a beer, which he politely refused.
“I'm on duty.” Another thing he'd always wanted to say, although he did quite fancy a drink right about now. His heart rate was only just returning to normal.
When McCaine emerged, she said, “Bloody typical. I make it through acute radiation syndrome just fine, then have to be sick anyway. Come on, we should go.”
She walked over to Julian and handed him a card. “That should cover the expenses,” she said.
As they walked towards the front door, Julian pressed a button on the money card. As the little display lit up, Julian's eyes gleamed.
“Hey!” he called out after them, “Feel free to shoot your way back in any time!”
McCaine smiled and shut the door. Julian stood up to get another beer.

* * *

It was getting late. McCaine had called a taxi and had them driven to a hotel. She simply refused to get on the Tube in her current state, she was not feeling well.
She had booked them separate rooms, although Nick's was currently empty as he was sat in McCaine's room, poring over the photos they'd acquired earlier for anything telling.
McCaine was in the shower.
"Nick, will you order me some room service?" she called from the bathroom. She'd left the door slightly ajar. Nick really didn't know how to feel about that.
"Okay," he called back, uncertainly.
"No fish!" she shouted.
Nick ordered two large fried breakfasts, which the hotel was more than willing to make at almost midnight, since they could charge extortionate amounts of money, which McCaine was more than willing to pay, since it wasn't her money.
She emerged from the bathroom shortly afterwards, wrapped in a large dressing gown with an enormously fluffy towel wrapped around her head.
"Found anything?" she asked, as Nick flicked through the channels on the TV.
He quickly turned it off and picked up the photos. "No, not yet," he said.
"I don't really know what to do now," she said, climbing under the duvet and into bed. Nick didn't know how to feel about that, either.
"What do you mean?"
"I think we should be going back to the SHA and making a report."
"But we don't know who to trust... right?"
McCaine sighed. "Yes, exactly. There's plenty of people there that I've known for years, but it's not like I can trust any of them, now."
They sat in silence, with Nick unable to offer any advice or any appropriate jokes.
"Still," she said, "fryup soon!"
And, soon enough, two immense fried breakfasts arrived, which McCaine seriously considered keeping to herself.
"I'm paying for them! And your room!"
"Yes, but it's not your money!" Nick protested.
McCaine relented, releasing Nick's captive fry up.
They ate quickly, having eaten little throughout the day and having worked up an appetite shimmying around the edges of tall buildings and such.
When McCaine was finished, she said, "Aah!" She was back under the duvet. "I find it best, at times like these, to see the big picture. Hand me those photos."
Nick passed them over and McCaine arranged them all on the bed, taking care to adjust her dressing gown into an appropriate state before she did so.
"Doing this can help you see patterns or notice things you might not, otherwise. If we had something to stick them up with, putting them on a wall is better idea. You can pace moodily in front of a wall and sit staring at it, moodily. You may even want to smoke a cigarette and sit in dim lighting."
"Not very practical," Nick said, "besides, this room is non-smoking."
They looked over the photos on the bed, McCaine kneeling on her end to see.
"You know..." she said, slowly, reaching for her bag, "I know where I've seen that person before."
"Orange's son?"
"Well, you don't know it's his son. But yes, it looks like it. He is so much younger than Orange and does bear a little resemblance. But anyway..."
McCaine reached into her bag and pulled out an unassuming file.
"How come everything is on paper? I thought that kind of thing was taxed nowadays."
McCaine gave Nick a look which said, 'Are you dumb?'
She also said, "Are you dumb? Do you think we pay taxes? Paper files are great because you can't hack into them and there's only one copy."
"Unless people take a copy."
"Yes, but that's harder with paper than it is with computer data. It's not like every single office has a paper copying machine, is it?"
Nick laughed. "Of course not, that would be ridiculous."
McCaine, who did not laugh, said, "Take a look at this."
She flicked open the file and fished around inside, finding a small photo amongst the papers. She held it up to Nick, who peered into the photo. It was small and extremely bad quality.
It was Orange's son's ID card for the mining facility on the Moon.
"Anthony Boss? That's his name?"
McCaine shrugged. "Maybe. This is Orange's informant. His apparent contact in the uranium trade. This is the guy I was told to find."
Nick thought about this for a while. "So who killed Orange?"
McCaine pouted. "It seems unlikely his son would kill him, but we don't know he didn't. We don't even know why Orange was there. This entire case is full of holes."
Nick looked thoughtfully over the photos. They were mostly of Agent Orange and Anthony Boss, stood together looking happy in various locations around Earth. One photo stood out for Nick. He picked it up and looked closer.
It was a picture of Orange and Boss on what looked like the moon, judging from the sky and general lack of scenery.
"Look at this," said Nick. "This is the only photo they're in where they're not smiling. And it looks like they're on the moon."
McCaine looked at the photograph. "Interesting, but not exactly helpful."
She put the photo back on the bed and yawned. "I'm tired. I'm using some of Orange's radiation sickness tablets and I don't they contain nearly as many illegal painkillers as the other ones. I'm going to bed."
Nick rose from his chair and began to gather up the photos.
"That's fine, Nick, leave them, you just go to bed."
"Alright. Goodnight then, Agent McCaine."
"Please," she replied, "call me McCaine."
Nick smiled and shut the door. McCaine leapt out of bed as soon as the door clicked shut, ran into the bathroom and threw up the entire fried breakfast she'd just eaten. Wiping her mouth, she said to herself, "Urgh, I'm not paying for another one..."