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together, as if wiping them clean.
    He grinned.
    And then he disappeared again.
    Hui looked left and right. He saw the half-shattered glass cube, the wrecked computer terminals and the remnants of the halon cloud. Somehow he was back in the Goodware office.
    “You!” someone shouted at him. “Knees! Now!”
    Hui turned his head fractionally. The butt of a gun hit the back of his neck. He went down. A booted foot kicked him over.
    “Move again and you’re dead,” spat a guard in body armour, aiming a machine gun at his face. The guard touched a mic at his throat. “Got one of them, sir.”
    Hui’s eyes tracked down the left side of his body – the cooling plastic of the PS5 console was now fully melded to his fingers.
    “Yessir,” the guard said. “Caught him red-handed.”
    Hack helped Jonesey to his feet and brushed the blast wreckage from his shoulders. “Are you okay?”
    Jonesey nodded. “Yeah. What about you?”
    “Not a scratch.”
    Jonesey started as Robert rematerialized beside them.
    “It’s okay,” Hack said. “He’s a friend.”
    “That guy won’t be bothering you any more,” Robert said. “I left him in the middle of a dozen armed guards. All the same, we shouldn’t hang around here.”
    Hack nodded and turned his attention to Jonesey. “You need to get out of the city. Go and lay low with my grandfather in Tai-O. He’ll understand – you can take my room for as
long as you need it. Just do me a favour: forget about Goodware Inc. and Ridge Run Rabbit for a while.”
    “I’ve had it with them,” Jonesey replied ruefully. Then he frowned. “Where will you be?”
    Hack glanced at Robert quickly and then looked back at his friend. “There are other kids like me out there. I have to meet them. See what they have to offer.”
    Jonesey threw his arms around him. “Just make sure you come back,” he whispered in his ear.
    “Look after my grandfather. Now get out of here.”
    Jonesey turned and ran for the fire escape, leaving Hack and Robert alone amid the ruined cubicles. In the distance a police siren whooped and howled, getting closer.
    “We should move,” Hack said. “Want to make that call?”
    Robert removed a mobile phone from the back pocket of his jeans. Flipping it open, his face fell as the screen remained dark. He pressed a couple of buttons, to no effect.
    “I think it got fried by my energy blast,” Hack said sheepishly. He sensed the innards of the machine fused beyond even his repair abilities. “Sorry.”
    Robert put the phone away. “Not a problem. There’s a pre-arranged extraction point about a kilometre from here. Tin Hau temple. Do you know it?”
    Hack nodded. It was a small Buddhist temple just off Nathan Road – probably about ten minutes away on foot. “I take it a teleport is out of the question?”
    “I’m pretty much out of energy for tonight.”
    “Then let’s get going.”
    They took the fire escape down to ground level and exited via the back entrance of the GC. It was the long way round, but Hack decided that it was best to keep to the side streets as much as
possible. For all they knew, Hui had accomplices watching the GC for their exit. Despite the heat of the night, they made a good pace, running side by side through the back alleys, which were all
but deserted now that the markets and shops had closed.
    “You really saved Jonesey and me tonight,” Hack said as they ran across an intersection. “Sorry for trying to ditch you earlier.”
    “Don’t worry,” Robert said. He looked drained after the last two teleports. “I know it’s hard to trust people. That trick back there was pretty cool, by the way.
What did you call it?”
    “The energy wave?” Hack said. “It was just something I thought would work. I’m still learning what I can do with my power.”
    “We all are,” Robert replied with a grin.
    Hack took a left towards Nathan Road. Kowloon’s main drag was as busy as ever – cars, buses and scooters fought for