Preston found himself staring at the form of an old fashioned offline-host, entirely separate from the global matrix. The VR was crude and lacked the usual high definition of current state of the art, but even so the form of the host was impressive in its own right. Among a vast black, starless sky above red sand he faced a glittering half sphere with a city inside whose buildings seemed too tall and spindly. All it needed was some white confetti inside to look like the largest snow globe ever created.

Thorn replied with a shrug: “To be honest, it was a rather involved journey – I just moved south howsoever I could: Hitchhiking, bitch riding, in niches hiding and once I even had to do some witch fighting. For a while I worked for a group of smugglers while crossing Azlan. And about half a year ago I arrived here in Panama. After my last delivery to Vasco he offered me a job as his bodyguard and errant boy. Definitely beats trudging through jungles and getting sucked out by insects.
How about you? What did you do in London of all places?”