Years after I left b-Exagora, I was sent the following recording:

“Jimmy. Talk to Randall. Get them to tell our story. Talk to Lorelei. Tell her Andras said to tell you everything, that you’re ready for liberation. And most importantly, live. Live fast, live beautifully, paint the world red for me. If you do that, I will live on forever”

It was accompanied by a note, which only said “It's a bit late, but I thought you should have this. Diana.”

I never managed to trace the message, and in some ways I'm glad I didn't, because it wasn't long after that that rumours began surfacing of Sovereign Family enforcers, skeletal killers more cybernetics than flesh: none of them ever speaking except one, which only ever repeated those words: “I will live on forever”. And the one said to hold the leash of these macabre attack dogs? There are whispers that it was Athena Ibsen, Elena Tyrell, Lorelei Wildner - but the name that came up again and again? Diana.

Now, I've done my time in the criminal underworld, and I don't plan to wind up in prison again, so I'll be steering clear of the Family, and of their dogs.

But there's a story there, and I was asked to tell a story.

So here it is.

- Preface to Blood and Primroses: A Prison Romance, a novel by Dick Randall, which topped the bestseller charts for several years. Far grittier than Randall's earlier work (their time on b-Exagora had a clear influence on their writing style), its blend of ultraviolent action scenes with classic romantic plotlines had a profound influence on trends in popular literature in subsequent year.