The faint smell of ammonia. It hits Marie's nostrils, a sensation of burning. The smell drifts in from the habitat adjacent to hers. A big Austrian man, calls himself Wren. The smell is Blice, full name Blue Ice. A stimulant anti-drug, used mostly by rehabs trying to reduce the effects of long-term dependence and the withdrawal from it. Wren was a user up until two weeks ago, she hasn't seen much off him since he said he was giving up. It wasn't the first time he'd tried. Marie turns over on her mattress, her body wrapped in several layers of blankets and sheets. Her short black hair laid messily around her brown tie died pillow. A soft skinned, rounded face, obscured by the NuTek portable eyephones, a small wireless module blinked blue to indicate transmission. The receiver, a NuTek Tsunami cyberdeck, black and silver, with blue and red streaks of style across its smooth, rounded casing was bolted onto the brick wall, a collection of cables snaked up the wall and into a hole in the ceiling, pipework and cables visible through the gap. Marie's fingers flex underneath the covers, her fingers typing via the data input gloves, five fingertips attached to her hand, wires running down the middle of each finger, linking into another wireless transmitted fastened to each hand, sensors on the finger tips interpret the actions with total accuracy. Through the eyephones Marie sees cyberspace, The Net spreading out all around her. Her fingers and eyes control the direction, the flow of information. The habitat is a crowded mess of chaos, the platform and people outside are sealed off by a large, thick drape. Her room, barely seven foot across and about eight deep is one person's life condensed to what will fit. A rechargable cooking hob combined microwave oven sits on top of a big plastic chest with electronic lock, the transparent insides showing all manner of clothes stuff and compressed inside the box. Stacked up along the same wall, more belongings, more frequently worn clothes, a small plastic washbag, various pieces of old computer hardware, a square mini-fridge, a wire trailing up into the ceiling gap again, joining the wire from the cyberdeck. Taking up most of the room is her mattress and the blankets strewn on it. Her physical life is minimalistic, simple, invisible. She is a whisper in the real world, a few entries in a medical database somewhere, a couple of biological parents somewhere above the skyline of London in some faceless apartment block, probably dead. The eyephones display signals an incoming call, Marie always mutes the audio, to avoid annoying Wren, annoying a guy coming off whatever Wren was on is a bad idea, Wren likes Marie, Marie likes it better that way. "Pryce Security Information Services." she announces, her voice clear, professional, said through gritted teeth. Japanese, thick accent, but perfect English. "Miss Pryce, Hiro Takeshi from Hyde-Winters." Hyde-Winters, financial investment company, accountants, lawyers, owns several banks, fifty-four percent of the world financial transaction go through their, or a subsidiary, computer system. "Good morning." she checks the clock on the eyephones, thankfully, it is morning, just. "I am just confirming our meeting for this afternoon, fourteen hundred hours?" "Yes Mr Takeshi, fourteen hundred." "Excellent, I am looking forward to meeting you in person." Marie disconnects the call and slides underneath her blanket. Fourteen hundred hours, two and a half hours away, give or take a few minutes. Marie sighs and sits up, her hand reaches across to the plastic chest and pulls a small canister off the microwave, red pills, pick me ups. She pops three into her mouth and swallows. She goes to stand up, realises the eyephones are still on, the camera inputs from four small cameras attached to the ceiling of her habitat gives her sight from behind the eyephones, she's been online for over thirty-six hours. She pulls the eyephones off and rubs her face, so tired, Marie rarely sleeps; a military grade sleep implant keeps her body artificially awake. Developed in the late twenty-first century to allow a better soldier, they didn't work too well. But Marie has grown accustomed to spending weeks at a time without sleep, the pills and drugs get her through. Marie grabs her washbag and stumbles across her mattress to the drape. She hooks her feet into a pair of sandals, takes a deep breath and steps out of her habitat into the narrow 'street' that runs between two lines of similar habitats that runs through the platform and down into the tunnel. She keeps her head low, avoiding the others passing up and down the narrow passageway. Most people down here subscribe to the idea of community, that they are all one family, Marie doesn't care about it, she lives here because she can't hear the street or see the adverts or have to deal with an cubicle, desk and the person next to her talking shit all day about her family, dog, kids or last night's television. For Marie, all of that promotes an almost allergic reaction to her, always had done. She keeps away from people as much as she can, she can't deal with crowds too well and she hates seeing giant video billboards and holoadverts topside. But that is where she must go, now, this afternoon, to work. Marie nips down a gap in the passageway and enters into the communal female washroom she walks along the row of cubicles until she finds an empty one and steps inside, bolting the door behind her. The shower's cold, but warms quickly; gratefully she steps into the spray and begins to wash. Normally she would insist all her communication with her client is conducted via The Net, but Hyde-Winters is new to her, she wants to see inside their building, the layout of the offices, the configuration of their network. Get a real sense of whom and what a company is by simple things like that. Plus she wants to ensure they use her and not one of the other countless datarunners in the world. Her reputation for being somewhat, difficult, to get along with has hindered her in the past and, despite her dislike for meetings, people and places, she'll make a good effort today and worry about the anxiety afterwards.