Prologue Part One

The ash fell heavily on London’s wastelands that night, creating jet black drifts of snow that lay thick on roofs, streets and on the figure cutting his way across the area once known as Hyde Park. The wastelands were the legacy of the early industrial areas created at the start of the industrialization program some 30 years previously, now defunct and home to all manner of pollutants. There were tales of people going into the smog clouds and never coming out again, or being seen later barely recognizable as the person they once were. There were stories of what lived in those dark alleyways, whispered between children and discussed in parlours behind locked doors where the fire gave a sense of safety.

The figure struggled on through the lanes between the hulking discarded machinery, tightly wrapped against the cold and breathing heavily through his air filtration unit to escape the choking smog. There was someone watching his journey, or rather something, a brushed brass Polisbot swept its searchlight over one of the avenues that ran though the park catching a movement, the body of the man showing bright green on its rudimentary HALO (Heat and Living Organism) detection screen.

Rescanning the area, The Ocular sensors caught the fleeing human and quickly it radioed other units in the area. Another curfew breaker though this time no ordinary one, its computational mechanics whirred into action, working merrily on the information request before finally producing the answer on the bots internal phosphor screen. "Recognition: Edward Spiris, Section E human confirmed, Member of the shattered cog." The words flashed on the screen as the Polisbot considered its options with the noise of shifting gears. The message cleared and new words took its place "Capture and interrogation only option". The internal targeting system locked on to Spiris before the bot ignited its secondary boiler and sped after the fleeing figure...