Handwritten Notepod entry. MOBCOM No.872 -7685-6245 2^nd December 20—

O’Brien,

If you are reading this, it means you have found the MC you have been using to trace us in a litter bin by the roadside, this last notepod entry uppermost, the stylus very pointedly broken in two. I am done with this device.

By now, you will also have surmised that I do not intend to give myself up. Pedro is not a party to any of the alleged crimes of which I am accused. I therefore ask that you exclude him from your thoughts whilst you attempt to find and arrest me. He has not made any of the decisions that bring me to this point beyond wanting to stay with me for whatever fate or the B & C have in store.  The gun is a memento, but useful in that it is the only accessible form of defence I could find in the AW. Pedro now tells me I could have had an AK47 from one conversation in a Hackney pub.  But I doubt we had the cash for that. I know for you it conveniently raises the stakes, but Pedro is no part of the battle between us.

The story you told me lacks conviction, smacking as it does of half-remembered science fiction and barely credible cinema scenarios. You know as well as I, that I am no clone or genetic experiment. We will no doubt meet again, but I think it fair to say that I regard you, along with everything else in this fantasy, as a figment. Therefore, you will catch me or not according to my own subconscious whim and it seems that neither your or I are wholly in charge of that.

You see, I know full well who you really are. In effect, Detective Inspector Gerry O’Brien, guileless literary taunt and gaunt authoritarian, you are disease. A living, breathing tubercule, chasing me across my dreams as you harried me in my waking life, a constant reminder that whatever fantasy I may harbour about a life with a woman, a child and a house by the sea, you will be lurking somewhere, trying to leech the breath from my lungs, the joy from my love, the light from my life. But I am not ready for you now. There is so much I still want to do. I am awake. I am alive, even if it is only in my mind. You shall not have me yet.

EAB

PS: Have you noticed how no one mentions the significance of your surname to me? Another salutary reminder that many people have heard of my work, parroting phrases like the lyrics of popular songs, but not a single one of you has actually read it. One might almost cite this as evidence of the fantastic and hallucinatory nature of the world I am in. But regrettably, I suspect it may be further evidence of this fever world being rooted in some sort of reality.