“Your surgeon was incredible,” I stammered. “Did you have anything else done?”
“A little. My nose; a few lines in my forehead, a little work elsewhere, you know how it is. I thought why not? Why not be better? Now people see who I really am,” he mused. “They envy me.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yes — of course. We set an example for how people should be.”
“And do they remember you now?” I asked, and there it was again, the slightest flickering in his eyes. “Do they remember who you are?”
“Everyone remembers me,” he replied softly. “I’m the one and only Parker from New York.”
“And before your treatments? Before Perfection? Who were you then?”
A glib answer rises quickly to his lips, it is Perfection about to speak, about to brush off anything that might be frightening, that might threaten the mask he wears, but no.
Perhaps no.
Perhaps there is a tiny shard of hope left, for in that moment, Parker from New York stopped, and reined in his glib, charming reply, and instead looked me in the eye and held my wrist hard and said, “Who are you?”
And it was him.
Of course it was.
Of course.
I pulled my hand away, turned my back, stepped into the crowd, pushed through it fast, Gauguin’s eyes rose to me but that was fine, that was absolutely fine, let him look, I just need to break his line of sight for a moment, let him forget again, turn and turn and turn, Filipa behind her brother, Gauguin by the door, Parker in the middle of the room and Parker
being perfect
Perfect: devoid of any feelings that might mean anything, any more
does not attempt to follow.
And within thirty seconds, he has forgotten.
I turn, turn again, circling the room. There are no CCTV cameras here, which is a mistake — someone on CCTV might have seen me, that’s happened before, back when I was robbing casinos, the computers always spotted me before the humans did — but the 106 are too exclusive to be monitored and so I turn, and turn, and turn, and at the end I smile delightfully at Gauguin as I walk by him, and see his hand close around the mobile phone in his pocket as I go.
I do not wait for him to look for my features; I round the corner at the end of the hall, pull off my shoes and run.
Chapter 47
Total fucking fail.
Total fucking breakdown.
A woman sits in her hotel room, hugging her pillows to her chest, and cries — she cries — like a fucking six year old.
Hope Arden get your fucking act together!
No good.
Hope Arden — the woman who was Hope Arden, before Hope Arden became no more than a blip in a digital record, a carbon footprint — this woman, sits now in a grey room in a grey hotel beneath a grey sky, and cries.
I want Luca Evard here to hold me, I want Gauguin staring in surprise, I want Filipa Pereyra looking at me in wonder, I want my mum who crossed the desert, my dad who told me never to turn to crime. I want Parker from New York, the one I can’t remember; Byron14, I want Reina bint Badr al Mustakfi, I want
someone
to say my name.
Gauguin didn’t even remember me long enough to chase after me when I fled from his sight.
Filipa will not remember eating noodles with me.
I am dead in all but deed.
My deeds are worthless.
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty 
eins zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht neun zehn elf zwölf dreizehn vierzehn fünfzehn sechszehn siebzehn achtzehn neunzehn zwanzig twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine…
I am the number one thousand four hundred and seventeen.
It is there where I stop crying.
Stand up.
Wash my face, cold water.
Wash my hands, two presses of soap on the dispenser above the sink.
Tidy my hair.
Stand up straight.
At one thousand four hundred and seventeen, I became disciplined again.
Chapter 48
I found Parker easily enough; exclusive hotel, exclusive car, exclusive… everything.
Exclusive: to exclude. Limiting possession or control to a single group.
Followed him, watched him laugh, smile, shake hands, bow from the hips.
He had a website-picture of himself on the front, dressed in white, one hand resting on a roulette table, mirrors behind, crystal chandeliers above. Portraits of ancient kings showed them with their hands resting on the world; the sceptre and the orb; soldiers at their backs. A roulette table beneath his fingers, Parker from New York, Perfect Parker, ruling the world, perfect in every fucking way
not angry.
I am one thousand four hundred and eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Used to be, no one remembered me, said his personal testimonial. Now I know what it takes to make an impression. Take a chance on perfection!
One thousand four hundred and twenty-one.
One thousand four hundred and twenty-two.
I watched him, and he didn’t remember me, but the world, it seemed, remembered him.
I contacted Byron14 the very same day.
wherewhatwhy: I want Perfection. I want to tear it open and know everything about how it works. I NEED to know how it works.
Byron14: So do I.
I am a thief.
A USB stick is left in a storage locker at Tokyo station.
I take it and go.
Chapter 49
Only two stops from Tokyo station to Inaricho. I ran my finger round the endless knot of Filipa’s Möbius strip, knew it would be sensible to leave the bracelet behind, didn’t want to take it off.
Fine: I permit myself a little indiscretion. A lapse of professionalism.
Tools of the trade. IDs stolen, security badges forged. Week after week, I built up faces, addresses, every phone stolen, every computer accessed, every face noted, wallet lifted, every name, every number. I could walk into the Tokyo offices of Prometheus right now, but Gauguin is in town, Gauguin has realised that he cannot remember my face, and so I go armed to Yamanote.
The last thing I collect is the first whose absence will be noticed — a security token, the size of my thumb, which displays six changing numbers when the correct fingerprint is pressed against it. These numbers correspond to a passcode on a door — this door stands between me and Prometheus’ servers. Once I steal it, there’ll be no stopping.
The man who possesses both the token and the thumbprint is Mr Kaneko. He is watched over by a security man at all times, but I have now made contact three times on three different reconnaissance missions and only once was security in my way.
Mr Kaneko is too boring for sin. But he believes in what he does, and lives by Perfection. Every Tuesday, Perfection informs him that the best thing he can do is go to the gym, so to the gym he goes. The gym is male-only, and so exclusive it doesn’t need to advertise.
The security guard waits in the foyer. I gain access through the service door, using the key stolen eight days ago from a personal trainer. Mr Kaneko has a private locker, always the same number — 324 — believing that these numbers are particularly auspicious. His lucky direction is north. His blood type is A+, which means he is a warrior, creative and passionate. (He is not.) He believes all this, so I have of course studied it.
Professionalism: conduct, aim or qualities connected with skilled people.
I walk into the male changing room without pause, horrifying many of the clientele who sit, towels hanging loose from their bare, honed flesh — and let myself into his locker with the receptionist’s master key.