If you meet me, have some sympathy 16

The landscapes of cyberspace take some getting used to, and my experimental version in Hell had been too basic to acclimatise me properly. As a spirit, existing as computer code shouldn’t be very different from assembling a human form in the physical world. That’s the theory – in reality it’s like severe jet lag multiplied ten-fold. Almost as soon as we materialised I collapsed into someone’s home page and threw up over their photos.

Theresa had obviously worked on a better model and managed to get me to my feet and away from our entry point. Looking back, I could see the swarming furious demons, but they couldn’t reach us here. After a few turns we found an old firewall to hide behind and catch our breath. The site it protected was some long-disused travel agency, strewn with old passwords, poor quality images of swimming pools and a pile of disappointed feedback. The distant lights of a search engine swept overhead.

Once it had passed by, I gazed over the wall at the broken industrial landscape. Somewhere out there was my target, and all I had to do was find and eliminate it. But we wouldn’t be the only ones looking.