 
# The Vanguard

by SJ Griffin

Copyright 2013 SJ Griffin

Smashwords edition

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# Chapter One

There was before the flood and then there was after the flood. It was simple. You knew where you were, and when. Everything else was divided into those two states of being, no matter how much more significant or catastrophic whatever happened may have been to the greater scheme of things. The day the oil disappeared was before the flood, the Seven Invasions were after the flood, along with the day that the economic systems collapsed and the world went bust. Then there was me. I was born at the precise moment the flood water inundated the city's most eastern boundary so I defied any attempts at classification. I wasn't from any simple place. I was of the flood.

I should introduce myself. My name is Sorcha Blades.

We always found a way to pick up what we needed, to stay one step ahead, to make things happen. We being me, Minos, Roach, Casino and Lola. The five of us were family. As we'd either never had a real one to begin with or lost them along the way we made our own family out of each other. We lived in an abandoned hotel in the northwest of the city, just between Queens and some district they hadn't bothered to name. A hotel was the only building that met all our requirements, enough space for five to live and five hundred to party, plenty of storage and well located for business, both the legitimate kind, without hope or glory, and our more profitable sidelines. We dabbled in espionage, theft, hacking, pirating, smuggling and fencing, although maybe not in that order. We knew how to make things work in our favour no matter what the odds.

Over the years we'd learnt, through bitter experience, that it wasn't a good idea to allow our business contacts to visit us at home. There were some very odd people out there. Greasy Clive's was more than a local institution to us, it was our office. Clive's cafe was perfect, heaving with the unclean masses devouring set lunches in the middle of the day, and pretty much empty first and last thing. It was last thing after my shift at Packet where I worked as a bike messenger. As jobs went it was one of the best I could have had. I rode my beloved bike around the city all day long, with just us and the road to worry about. It was dangerous enough to make me feel like I was alive, like I was swimming ahead of the tide instead of just keeping my head above water. Clive had started to think about closing up and I was sitting in the window seat opposite Loki and his hair. Birds could have nested in it if Loki could just sit still for a moment, he was in perpetual motion. At the end of the working day it was tiring just watching him.

'I wouldn't give just anyone a deal like this, Sorcha,' Loki said. He said my name with a soar and then a shushing sound, dropping the 'a' at the end, like I was a highflying secret. Soar-shhh.

'Of course you wouldn't,' I pushed aside my empty plate.

He picked up the small box from the red plastic chair next to him and placed it on the table like it was checkmate. Inside were a thousand blank identity cards. I slipped it into my bag, certain it would keep us going for a while.

'Payment, payment,' he said. 'You can't just take them.'

'Relax,' I nodded towards small card propped up against the ketchup bottle, this one loaded with credit, accepted everywhere.

Loki nodded in approval at my sleight of hand and as he attempted to slide the card up his own sleeve it caught on his cuff. 'And you make it look so easy,' he said. The bell over the door gave its cheerful ding as he left.

Clive stood at my elbow, apron stained with the day's orders. 'Sorry Sorcha, you're going to have to pay your tab today.'

'Really, Clive?' I said. 'Really?'

'I'm afraid so,' he said. 'I'm not running a charity you know.'

'After everything I've done for you, it's come to this,' I offered him my payment card.

'There's no need to be like that,' Clive pushed it away. 'I was wondering if you had any of that rum left. Just a bottle. Just one.'

We were still up to our ears in smuggled rum so I arranged a delivery time along with an extended tab for me and the others. I stretched my tired legs out and watched strange bubbles forming on the top of my tea. The door signalled more company and Casino sauntered across the cafe looking as stylish as ever, his elaborate goatee trimmed to perfection.

'Did you hear the one about the clumsy friend and the noodle seller?' he said.

'I love jokes,' Clive said, he was clearing the next table.

'It's no joke, Clive,' Casino said. 'It's a tragic tale of a young life cut short.'

'What's he done now?' I said.

'Why don't you pop up to the market and have a look,' Casino sat opposite me and took my tea. 'There's quite a crowd gathering.'

I left him to deal with Clive's complaints about tea sharing and its effect on profits and rode up through the mauve evening to the Jubilee Market. I could hear the crowd from the main road as I locked my bike to a lamp post that leant into the road, the victim of an accident or some high jinks. When I came around the corner by the shoe stalls, I could see Minos in the distance. He looked like he was crowd surfing at a very rowdy gig. As I pushed my way through the people I saw he was being held high above the head of a very angry noodle seller who went by the name of Doodle. Doodle was a small man but all muscle. He had worked on his Japanese food stall so long that we all thought of him as being Japanese. He was a little Japanese somewhere, way back before the invasion, but like most of us he'd never left the city, never mind the country. He was shouting in Old Japanese and I remembered enough from school to know that he was threatening to throw the monkey through the window. And we thought we'd never need those obscure phrases we'd learnt. This was an unusual situation. The Minos part was expected but Doodle was a very relaxed fellow. He was not a man to threaten to throw anything through a window, he was a man to help a friend in a fix and never mention it again. Me and Doodle went back a long time, many fixes and favours having passed between us.

'Hello Doodle,' I said.

'Oh, Sorcha Blades her very self,' he said as though he wasn't holding two large handfuls of gangly ginger man above his head.

'How's it going?' I said, quite enjoying Minos's incredulous expression at how casual I was being.

'Not too bad,' Doodle said. 'How are you?'

'All good. Are you sure you're OK? You seem a little tense.'

'Well, to be honest, an incident has occurred. Someone smash my stall all up. Smash it all up. What is Doodle to do?'

'First may I say, Doodle, how sorry I am that someone has smashed your stall up,' I said. 'The damage does appear to be quite extensive.'

The stall looked like a pile of chopsticks. The crowd were nodding in agreement. There seemed to be more of them now, reasonable negotiation being a more intriguing event than the more commonplace threat of extreme violence. A woman caught my eye, she was as short as a child and fat, but more interesting to me was that she seemed to be taking notes. Doodle shifted the weight of Minos over his head and Minos clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle a scream.

'I would be as upset as you are had it happened to me,' I said. 'Why don't we see how we can proceed without any more damage being done to person or property?'

'This is your friend, right?' Doodle said. 'I thought he looked a little bit familiar. Now I know why.'

'Unfortunately, he is,' I ignored Minos's glare.

'Then I put him down,' Doodle said.

Minos dropped to the ground as Doodle let go and stepped out from under him as neat as a martial artist. The crowd sounded their approval as Minos landed in the mud among the scraps of food and paper that harboured who knew what fatal germs.

'So, I think it over,' Doodle said, in no time at all. 'And what Doodle want is cash for the stall.'

'Cash?' I looked at Minos. The crowd murmured, the woman scribbled her notes. I tried to catch her eye but she was engrossed in whatever she was writing.

'Cash. Let's say two thousand,' Doodle said.

I pulled Doodle to one side, away from the crowd who began to disperse muttering various complaints about the excitement being over, I noticed the woman and her notebook slip away with the rest of them. Minos hovered nearby, shuffling like a kid waiting outside an important office.

'What's going on?' I said.

Doodle, like everyone, had his vices. Gambling was one and even more gambling was another. But he wasn't a man who sought the kind of kicks that cost cash. He was in trouble.

'Doodle will do you a favour,' Doodle said. 'I not tell you. But if he doesn't get me the cash I will tell the people I owe it to all about him.'

'But cash, Doodle, come on,' I said. Even we, with our extensive network of contacts, would find it impossible to lay our hands on cash. It wasn't worth anything so no one used it, not even on the black markets. Everything was traded on credit now the economy was dead. Whoever Doodle owed they were just making a point, putting Doodle through hell for the fun of it.

'And what about that favour you owe me?' I said. I hated to pull that one but there was something about Doodle's defeated demeanour that worried me.

'Yes, I remember that,' Doodle said. 'That's why I not ask for the ten grand I need.'

Ten thousand in cash.

'OK,' I said. 'Give him a few days. He'll get it.'

Minos made a noise like a puppy in a bag finding it had a brick for company. I dragged him away as Doodle turned back to the ruined stall.

'I slipped on a half eaten kebab,' Minos said. 'A pitta did for me. It wasn't my fault.' He looked miserable.

'Could be worse,' I patted him on the arm. 'You could owe the people Doodle owes instead of owing Doodle.'

'We'll never find that much cash,' he said. 'Then I will owe the people he owes.'

'We,' I said. 'We will owe them'

I tried to look positive, but without a stroke of luck, the kind I'd never encountered, we would be in trouble too. Big trouble.

We sat in the kitchen, around a table littered with half eaten pizzas, proving that a problem shared might be halved but it wasn't any closer to being solved. The kitchen opened out onto the restaurant so that the well heeled could watch the chefs creating their dinner. But that was once upon a time, just then five scruffy individuals sat in the kitchen and the restaurant's new clientele was the hardware that covered most of the tables. Weird-looking computers and other machines that Minos had snagged from the docks and that we'd reprogrammed to oil the mighty wheels of our empire murmured and hummed. We had so much technical kit we'd had to install our own generator, the drain on the official energy grid would have brought Enforce to our door. Besides, we needed round the clock electricity and the official juice went off between midnight and five in the morning. That was no good to anyone but the government that switched it off.

'We are already in big trouble,' Casino said. 'It is when he tells them rather than if, after all.'

'We've been in worse situations,' Lola said, picking a chunk of pineapple off her pizza and sticking it on mine.

'Like what?' Minos said.

Lola thought about it for a minute, turning her large hooped earring round in her ear, tangling it in her unruly blonde hair. 'I'm just trying to be positive. We haven't.'

'She's right,' Casino slapped Minos on the back. 'Well done.'

'What are we going to do?' Roach said.

'Could we print the cash?' Lola said.

'No, it'd take months to get the parts together,' Minos said.

'Chunk has a press,' Roach said, referring to one of their colleagues, in the loosest sense of the word, at the dock.

'It's the paper,' Minos said. 'Impossible to get hold of. The ink we could fake, but the paper, no way.'

'Would they know?' Lola selected another slice of pizza.

'If you'd seen the state of Doodle, you wouldn't want to test them,' I said.

We lapsed into a thoughtful silence that was tinged with a little despondency, the hum of the computers and the occasional beep the only sound. A scanner stuttered into life and we listened to an Enforce officer call in a street robbery just around the corner. They were on the broadcast channel so it was only for show, all the interesting activity was reported on the closed channels, which we also listened in on.

'How long have we got?' Casino said.

'He didn't say,' I said.

They exchanged concerned glances. No deadline, that was a worry.

'Who is after Doodle?' Roach looked horrified at his rhetorical question.

It was a bit upsetting as he was the toughest person I knew. Not much frightened Roach because not much was bigger than him.

My wristset bleeped. It was Packet. An automated message to call for a code four. That meant an urgent delivery.

'But I'm on call,' Casino said, checking his own wristset.

Minos built them to keep us in touch with each other and hooked up to the DarkNet wherever we were. They received and made all kinds of voice calls, text messages and other kind of short communications over secure channels. They also linked to our tablets so we had access to a larger screen and more information when we needed it. They looked like cheap, knocked off wristsets from decades ago so they'd never been stolen. And even if they were, they were locked down with the kind of security it would take years to penetrate, that's if Minos didn't blow them up by remote first. In another world Minos would have been a lauded inventor, but in this one he was forced into a life of crime.

'Maybe it's a mistake,' I wandered out to the restaurant to call. 'Despatch. It's Sorcha. You have a docket for me.'

'Blades. Good evening. I do indeed have a little old docket here that has just come in,' it was Yum. The worst, most long-winded dispatcher at Packet. He had never been a courier and therefore had no idea how annoying it was to be standing around in the freezing cold waiting for a job while he wind-bagged his way through the simplest information.

'Casino's on call,' I said. 'Should he take it?'

'I'm afraid not, lazy bones. This one has come in with a special request for you to do it. And it's got special bonuses attached if you do it on time. Cash on delivery. What job number did we send?'

'886498,' I said, annoyed by the inappropriate cash joke. I couldn't believe people still used that phrase. Yum seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to finding ways to annoy me.

'OK. The address is Lower Ground, 345 Golden Square. Ride safely.'

I cut him off and waited for the text confirmation and codes.

The information scrolled across my tiny display, the fee was massive. I ran back to get my jacket, already mindful of the bonuses.

'You up?' Casino said.

'Yeah, they asked for me particularly. Big, big fee. It must be some serious data.'

'Where?' Lola said.

'Pick up in Golden Square.'

'Then on to?'

I stopped half in, half out of my jacket. 'I don't know.'

Everyone looked a little bothered by this. Not having all the information up front was not in itself unusual but an off roster docket with a special request made it uncomfortable. But I could handle myself. I was the top rider at Packet, I'd run down more jobs, made more bonuses than anyone. I'd also had more accidents than anyone else, and caught more Enforce tickets too but they were a small price to pay for the glory.

'I'll get into the system and find out more,' Minos said. 'We'll find out where it came from.'

'Run along, dear,' Lola helped me on with the rest of my jacket. 'We'll be in touch.'

The streets were still busy. There were a couple of hours left in the day until the power went out on the stroke of midnight, so my fellow citizens were buzzing around trying to get by before medieval times descended upon us. I quite liked the switch-off hours, they didn't affect me and my generator but they did force a kind of peace on the city. At three in the morning everyone ordinary would be inside and the street belonged to people trying their luck and beating the odds. It was my favourite time. The switch-off worked better than the curfew did, we'd ignored that for so long I couldn't even remember when it was supposed to start.

The NW sector appeared on all the maps and the most official paperwork but it was, to all intents and purposes, hidden. A clandestine town lurking in the dark shadow of the seen city, clinging on to ermine robes like an out of favour court jester. I took the one maintained road into the favoured realm. The only other vehicles were drivers for hire ferrying goods, information or people. Once in a while one of the driverless cars would glide by with that eerie whine they made. The roads used to be full of them running their set routes around the city. Some of them had been hacked and stolen or commandeered by joyriders but the rest still drifted around the city like ghosts, looking for pickups. The only ordinary people who used their vehicles spent the working day in them, or on them. The more affluent citizens, of course, had cars but they were the kind that sat on driveways looking expensive, you never saw one on the road. The fuel was hard to come by in the upper classes and they couldn't use the unlicensed homemade oil that we used. Appearances wouldn't allow. They used taxis to get around and to get them around taxis used a synthetic fuel supplied by the government which eroded fuel lines. In double rush time the ragged posters and graffiti of the NW Sector made way for the digital display screens of the Administration Sector, so called because that's where all the slippery wheels of society were greased – Enforce headquarters, all the ministries and some of the Academies were housed there. The buildings were grey, grand affairs and few people knew or cared what went on behind their blank windows. I had all the relevant permits to deliver throughout the sector so I had a fair idea of what went on and it was not much, so far as I could tell. It was a world away from the NW Sector.

I jumped a red light at Arch and Park and cruised down the road to Loho. When the floods came, the river inundated huge sections of the city, pouring through streets almost a mile north of embankments that had stood firm for hundreds of years. Loho used to be in the heart of the city, a throbbing throng of narrow streets hiding a vibrant scene that ran round the clock, now it stood nervous and skittish on the edge of the black water. In the early days people had abandoned it, fearing further flooding, but in the last few years some cafes and bars had opened. People, desperate for housing, had moved back in bringing the shops and the other services they needed with them. They were on the whole the plastic dolls of the Work and Labour class. A few little media companies had sprouted up, trying to make a name for themselves running data and information in a saturated market. It was an easy market to get into but even easier to get out of. I rode round and round the square looking for number 345. There was a 344 and a 346 but their odd neighbour was nowhere to be seen. Then I saw a narrow ramp leading down. I could only just fit my skinny bike between the boards covering the old entrance. It opened out into a huge underground space that might have been a car park at some point. Now it just smelt damp and harboured gigantic rats. I guessed this would be lower ground, what with it being lower than the ground. There was an impressive display of graffiti and in the far corner someone had taken a lot of trouble to whitewash over a couple of square metres on the wall. On it they'd sprayed the number 886498. My job number. The tag said Imagination Industries. At first I thought it might be a viral campaign, something to do with the games they pumped out to the eager masses, but who would come down here to see it?

Imagination Industries was one of the few multinational corporations still operating. Most of them had gone under - pharmaceuticals, energy, old media, financial they all went. The financial sector went fastest and dragged everything else down. But Imagination industries were growing. They were so secretive that no one, not even the government knew what they were up to. It was rumoured that they kept a huge amount of credit off shore somewhere and were worth more than most countries. They had the monopoly on the gaming houses, the news channels, their hateful logo spun round and round on every television screen in every house, in every country in the world. They were a phenomenon. They made me suspicious. They used the old retail models laid out in dusty old manuals, their holy trinity was consume, consume, consume.

The more I looked at the number on the wall, the more it felt like a clue. I called home.

'Lola, what's Imagination Industries reception address?'

'Excellent work, I was waiting for your call. We think you'll want the Administration Sector office,' she said. 'They placed the order.'

'Why did they give the Golden Square address then?' I'd wasted precious minute cycling around Loho when I had bonuses to chase.

'They moved this evening. Order was placed this afternoon, with a time stamp.'

Imagination Industries had been able to get round some of the peskier corporate laws by never having a physical address but the Ministry of Work and Labour had managed to persuade them, with a big government contract no doubt, to have one registered address and to at least pretend to comply with government policy. Imagination Industries treated that as another game and changed offices like people changed their socks, more if those people were Minos.

I pedalled out of there at speed, swooping up the ramp. A car was parked opposite the entrance to 345, I noticed it because it was so shiny, light bouncing off its waxed black body. As I took a left along the waterfront I looked over my shoulder and saw it pull out to follow me. Good luck with that, I thought.

I was not unaccustomed to being follow. It could be rival courier company. Swift, called that even though they were anything but, were the worst. They tasked their rookies with following riders from the best companies in the hope of some of the sparkle rubbing off on them. They also hijacked packages and delivered them on your behalf, along with the message that the client should give their business to a company with better security, like Swift. It was surprising how often it worked. Or maybe it wasn't. Everyone was paranoid about security and couriers were the safest way of moving data and information around. The fastest way to tell everyone what you were doing was to put it in the hands of the web and its mighty data cloud. Nothing was safe there.

I cycled up towards the Riverside Sector, slowing as I came to the edge of the Cathedral Quarter. The narrow lanes of the oldest part of the city would be rife with rich folk and taxis. Taxis hated couriers. The tro-tro and van drivers of the NW and N sectors were no threat to their business as they weren't licensed to carry data, but cycle couriers were. We could take it anywhere we liked and we did. Data was where the credit was, information was the most valuable currency we had. We carried it cheaper, faster and suffered less bureaucracy. Taxis just couldn't bear us elbowing into their lucrative territory so they tried to run us down. There had been cases of messengers being hit by taxis and their deliveries being stolen for Enforce. About three quarters of my deliveries weren't legal but as a courier I was protected by the laws of privacy. One advantage of having self-serving lunatics making the laws was that they came up with lots of laws that we could manipulate to our own ends. If we couldn't open the packages or even ask what was in them, we couldn't be held responsible for their contents. We couldn't name our pick up or drop off addresses either. The clients were protected by a similar web of strange laws, some contradictory. Enforce were allowed to do pretty much as they liked, within this strange arrangement of conflicting legislation, so if a taxi pulled a package from a courier they got a nice kick back for all the information inside and another courier got taken off the road, sometimes for good. That was what I hated most about the taxis, they were in with Enforce. I was going to keep a low profile and keep my delivery. I arrived at the address Lola had given me in next to no time at all. It was a narrow kiosk between an old fire station and some burnt out flats. I was admiring the irony when I saw Casino free-wheeling down the pavement.

'All right?' Casino said.

'Not really,' I said. 'This is driving me nuts. I've been all over the place already. What do you want?'

'Now, play nicely,' he said. 'You need an ID chip. Yum called in a terrible panic.'

'Why didn't he call me?'

'Fear,' Casino handed me a card which would identify me as an authorised rider. They only insisted on ID if the package was over a certain value to the sender.

'Thanks,' I said.

'Have a nice evening,' Casino said, bunny-hopping off the kerb and into the light flow of traffic.

I knocked on the door. A small slot opened.

'Yep?' said a pair of eyes, eyelashes thick with mascara. 'What is it?

I passed her my chip.

'Pause, please.' The window closed.

I watched the traffic rolling past. The car from Golden Square cruised by, or one very similar. It was one of the few cars with two working headlights.

'Pick up number?' The eyes were back.

'886498.'

'Pause, please.'

The window closed again. I waited. Then it opened again and a hand pushed a slim brown envelope towards me, the ID card balancing on top.

'Go, go,' said the eyes.

The envelope suggested I went all the way back to where I had come from and out to the offices on the edge of Kensington Fields. I felt the envelope to see what was in it. I hoped it wasn't an invoice, which would mean another pick up, but I knew it was. It had an aura of futility about it.

The clock was counting down faster than I would have liked so I rode down into an old underground station and into the tunnel heading west. The flood shut down the whole underground train network, what wasn't underwater was crippled by a system that wasn't set up to deal with even the smallest crisis, never mind an apocalypse. By the time the Ministry of Environs and Conurbations had begun to think about starting up some of the lines again, for the commuting Work and Labour force, enterprising citizens had already stolen most of the track. We had appropriated some cabling so were in no position to judge.

It was much quicker underground, much more direct. In no time at all I passed the turning for Mole Town, one of the underground communities that had sprung up. Mole Town, like some of the sub-settlements further north, was a no go area. It was just like above ground, there were places you couldn't go if you didn't belong. There was a legendary section of tunnel that had been colonised by some group insisting that the world had already ended and that the sun was killing us as revenge for the damage we'd done to the planet. Three generations had been born underground and now, again according to stories, the babies were born half-mole half-human. Casino said that was what happened when children started inbreeding. Some people said they'd turned cannibal but no one had dared to try and find out if it were true. A couple of years ago one of the kids left the community saying it was like a cult and he wanted to be free above ground. He lasted three months and then his skin ate him because it couldn't stand the light. He had very angry skin.

I rode along the gaps left by the missing rails until I reached the basement entrance to Elijah Blue's cafe. He had a back door below stairs for those times when the party wasn't ready to call it a night but Enforce were keen to break things up. Elijah would just move everyone underground leaving a couple of decoys upstairs for the officers to interrogate. I used my bike light to show the way through his dark cellar, slipping between the stacks of chairs and tables that would be spilling across the pavement upstairs come summer. Although, given we'd missed the last three summers, they might be down there for a while longer.

'Evening, Elijah,' I said.

'Hello, Sorcha,' Elijah said, holding the door open for me. 'What brings you up through my cellar?'

'Annoying job,' I said.

'No rest for the wicked,' he said. 'Get Roach to give me a ring will you? I need some security for a party next week.'

The office down by the Fields turned out to be inside the arch with half a horse statue on top of it. I didn't know where the other half had gone. It was some kind of library that I'd never heard of. A man with a croupier's visor gave me a padded envelope.

'Is this the actual delivery?' I said.

'Yes,' he said. 'Why?'

'Because I've been back and forth all over the place.'

'Oh, I am terribly sorry,' he said. 'I thought that was your job. Must have been terribly inconvenient for you.'

Before I could say anything smart he'd gone. I looked at the delivery address, and wasn't at all surprised to see that I would be going back the way I had come to the Cathedral Quarter. As I was unlocking my bike I spotted the car from earlier speeding back towards the Administration Sector. I thought they might be extra security for the magical mystery tour, someone wanting to protect their package without taking any of the risks themselves. They'd pick the padded envelope from my cold, dead hand before they would let someone else get hold of it. I pulled my bag tighter and pedalled back into fray.

I decided to take a route over the rooftops, it wouldn't be any shorter but it would be more discrete and no car could follow me. No one outside my social bracket would dare go up there. I doubted some of the Administration class even knew people lived up on the roofs. The only time they'd see one of the sky people would be when there was an accident or a dispute, and then they'd only be a sky corpse lying crumpled on the pavement. Not worth bothering about at that point.

The sky people lived on the roofs, along the northern bank of the swollen river, maybe to balance out the people who lived in the tunnels. They had set up a system of bridges and springboards with old planks and driftwood so that anyone could get around up there, away from the streets below. The springboards were fun, like flying, but no good on a bike so I stuck to a longer route over flat bridges. Once in a while, you would find some Enforce officer up there trying to pay people to vote or looking for new recruits amongst the hardened street fighters who'd seen it all. Not that they ever had much success. Many of the people who fled up onto the roof after the flood refused to come down again, so now there were children up there who had never set foot on the earth. They just stayed up in the sky, wind burnt and gazing off into the far, far distance.

It was dangerous riding up there with the dramatic possibility of falling to your death at every turn, but it was one of the few ways to get into the Riverside sector without getting caught on camera. The flatter roofs had been turned into narrow streets lined with shops, stalls and houses and even late at night it was a bustling place. The sloping roofs were peppered with makeshift doors leading to the dwellings inside. I sometimes thought that I would have liked to live up there but I knew that in the end it would have driven me crazy, like living on a small island. There was no technology up there either. The sky people had turned their back on many of the old ways and tried to plot their own course in the clouds, my path was on the ground with the tricks of my trade.

I stopped on the roof of the Old Coliseum to make sure of my path down to the narrow canals that had replaced the streets below and the nearest gondola stop.

'One doesn't often see a bicycle up here,' said a voice.

'No?' I turned around to see Latch loitering in the shadows.

Latch was Enforce to the bone. He spent all his free time lifting weights, probably in the hope that they would make him taller. Latch was the only officer to have been removed from the Detention Centre for enjoying it too much. It was considered a punishment for wayward officers. They'd levelled a square mile of residential streets in the N Sector to build the Centre and it was a useful deterrent on the whole, but more against getting caught than committing any crime. Enforce hated it if they got sent there because it was a move in the wrong direction. Deeper into the security side and further away from the power. That was all Enforce people wanted – power. Not Latch. He was in it for kicks and he found many a kick in the Detention Centre.

'And what brings you up here?' he said, coming towards me. 'So far from your little stomping ground.'

'Work,' I said. 'Delivering for Imagination Industries.'

'You are licensed to ride after curfew, I assume?'

'Of course I am.'

'May I?' He held out his hand for the package. His leather gloves, black and expensive, were scuffed at the knuckles.

'Under code 47 dash 3998 backslash 43 I can't do that. I'm not authorised.'

'Quite right,' Latch said. 'But consider me special authorisation.'

He took a step forward, he was only half a wheel away. His breath was minty fresh but beneath it I could smell booze, a lot of booze.

'I know I have a reputation, it has taken me many years to establish, but there's really no need to be so standoffish about it. I just want to take a little peek,' he said.

I just stared at him trying to look tough and unconcerned. But inside I was counting up the number of accidents I could have up there if I didn't hand over the package. I got to six. The more I thought, the more unpleasant and imminent they got. There would be no witness, no report, just my corpse keeping its counsel.

'If you don't let me, I'll make you,' Latch said. 'And then I'll make you do some other things you probably won't like much.'

'Evening,' Roach said.

Latch, being of average height, turned to look at Roach and found himself staring at a point somewhere between his nipples. He looked up and Roach brought his hands together at great speed over Latch's ears. Latch keeled over backwards, out cold. Roach bent his enormous frame down to Latch's prone body and slipped a small envelope into his coat pocket.

'That should put him off making a fuss,' he said. 'Some things a man wants to keep secret.'

'How did you know I'd be up here?' I said.

'We've been following you,' Roach said, showing me a small tablet showing my location with a flashing blue dot. 'Lola's at the controls, the rest of us are out with you.'

I felt the tracking pin in my collar, Lola must've slipped it in. I would have complained about it being over the top, but Roach had already stepped over Latch and was gone. He was very stealthy for a big man.

I hauled myself and the bike down to the water and I wasn't surprised to see Minos sitting on a lopsided bollard by the edge of the canal, crossing and uncrossing his restless legs. The moonlight danced across the thick water as it lapped against the half-submerged doorways and windows.

'Roach get Latch off your case?' he said. 'He'd been skulking around up there for hours for some reason, we thought you'd bump into him.'

'Yeah. As if my magic he appeared. What was in the envelope?'

'Just some stuff we rustled up earlier for him. You don't want to know. Boy stuff. Not for sensitive souls such as yourself.'

'Fair enough,' I said. 'Checking up on me?'

'Of course, but I am here also to share a couple of interesting snippets. First snippet, you'll get hard payment on delivery.'

That was odd, most of the time payment would be transferred into my account through Packet. 'What else?'

'You're being followed,' Minos said.

'Thought so.'

'I wonder what's in that package.'

'We may never know,' I said.

'You definitely won't open it?'

'There's a code.'

'I thought it was a guideline?'

'It's a code,' I said. 'You never open the package.'

'Is a code like a rule?'

'No,' I said. 'You don't break a code.'

A gondola made no sound as it floated up behind Minos.

'I see,' Minos said. 'I'm glad I don't have any codes, it must be very inconvenient.'

'I ain't taking that thing,' the gondolier said, pointing at my bike. He had a huge waterproof poncho that made him look like an aquatic monk.

'Why not?' I said. Gondolas were only allowed to carry people, to stop them carrying more profitable freight across the river, but most gondoliers couldn't care less about the legalities and would take anything and anyone anywhere for a fee.

'Because it's too big and too dirty.'

'We'll pay,' Minos said. 'What do you want? We can get most things.'

'I don't want most things, what I want is a clean gondola. That's all I want.'

'I'll carry it,' I said. 'I'm only going to the Cathedral Quarter. It won't touch your boat.'

'No,' said the gondolier. 'You leave it or I leave you.'

'Come on,' Minos said. 'Don't be like that.'

'Don't you be like that. You wait here for another gondola stupid enough to take you and your stupid bike. You'll be waiting a long time. There's no one else around.'

Minos and I looked at each other. The clock was ticking, waiting was not an option. He was right, there wouldn't be anyone around at that time of night. The river was teeming in the day but deserted at night.

'I can't leave it,' I said. 'I need it at the other end.'

'Sorry, I guess it's not your lucky night.'

He hefted his pole to cast off again but Minos caught it, unbalancing the gondolier who swayed back and forth waving his arms to try and stop the momentum. Minos opened his mouth to make his new offer but his words were cut off by a hungry gulp as the gondolier tumbled from his boat and into the water. We waited for the bubbling to stop.

'What do you think?' I said. 'Drowned or poisoned.'

'Poisoned, I should think. At this time of year,' he said, looking sheepish and still holding his end of the pole. 'Your carriage awaits.'

I lifted the bike onboard and took the pole from Minos.

'You don't want me to come?'

I laughed. No way was I getting in a gondola with Minos.

Minos bowed as I pushed off into the canal. 'Bon voyage, Madam. I'll wait here for you, just in case.'

I found the canals eerie, I didn't like not knowing what was beneath me. Under the dark waters of the narrow canal, between the buildings, lay the old streets, roads with white lines down the middle littered with debris from miles and miles away. The water wasn't very deep but it was very toxic. I punted the gondola across the square and away, over the relics of the old city and its past lives.

I dumped the gondola between two of the buzzing machines that projected the screen around the Project shielding delicate paper doll eyes from the ragged anarchy of the ghetto that rose into the skies above the river. I rode up the hill to the Cathedral Quarter address on the package. The Quarter was a small part of the Riverside Sector, the part of the city where the richest people lived. We called them the paper dolls because most of them worked in the Ministries or the Academies and therefore spent their time pushing irrelevant pieces of paper around large desks in giant offices that could each have housed at least three of the thousands of homeless families forced to squat in the NW sector. There was a middle class, the people who worked to keep the paper dolls in paper, we called them the plastic dolls because they couldn't afford such good cosmetic surgery and they all looked the same, as though they were manufactured. Each faction lived on either side of the river and the Riverside Sector was on the north side. The south side hadn't been given a sector designation, it was just part of the SE sector, no one important enough lived there. The very rich had commandeered the skyscrapers that glared at the upstarts across the water. The Cathedral Quarter was where all the old art and antiques were stored, once they had been recovered from the flooded galleries and museums. There were huge halls in the Quarter full of old masters but no one ever tried to steal anything. There was no market for it so it was all donated to the Arts Academy who gave polite thanks and left it all where it was.

I had no trouble finding the right address. It was an ancient door set back in a crumbling stone archway. Original features meant old money, the kind of money that somehow stayed safe. I locked the bike out of habit rather than necessity. There was no one about. The residents of the Riverside Sector observed the curfew. They had to, they invented it. As I raised my hand to ring the bell, the door opened and I almost fell inside. There was a hallway beyond the door. The floor was made up of large flagstones and the walls were covered in heavy scarlet and gold curtains. Dark wooden furniture stood around the edge of the long space, medieval and grand. A woman stood there. She had very long red hair, the many tones picked out by the candle light. Her skin was ceramic in its clear, pale perfection. Her eyes were a shade of green I had never seen. She smiled.

I handed her the package, opened my mouth and closed it again. I was aware of how I looked, how I was too tall and too skinny.

'Thank you,' she said. 'I really need what's in here.'

She turned the package over in long, slim fingers and I found that I really wanted her to open it and show me what was inside. I'd never cared before, the code ingrained in my very being.

'Follow me,' she said.

She led me into a library. Green leather sofas hugged a fireplace with a roaring blaze and thousands of books lined the walls. I stared, you didn't often see so many books together. There were far more than Minos had salvaged and ours weren't lined up on shelves, they were in a pile on the floor. The woman was standing over a desk by the window, intent on something in a drawer, so I wandered over to a shelf just to touch the heavy bound books. I pulled off my dirty cycling gloves and ran the clean back of my hand across the spines. The books were old and gold embossed lettering betrayed their subjects; witchcraft and magic. Old magic. Not the magic of codes and pixels, the magic of spells and spirits.

'Cash on delivery, I believe,' said the woman, close behind me.

She handed me a thick packet, three times the size of the one I had given her.

'Check it,' she said. 'You've got the full fee. And a tip.'

She had this way of looking at you that wasn't looking at you, it was looking into you. Lola had a way of doing that, but this woman was on a whole other level.

'Go on,' she said. 'I won't be offended. Besides I think you'll be pleased.'

She sat on one of the sofas while I peeled back the corner of the envelope. It was full of cash, cash on delivery.

'I thought that was just a saying,' I said. I put the envelope in my bag. I guess I should have had questions but if there was one thing we never did then it was let an opportunity pass us by. No matter what the consequence might turn out to be.

'Most of the time,' said the woman. 'Do you want to know what's inside my envelope?

I nodded.

She opened the envelope and out slid a disc with a red label on it. It had the Imagination Industries logo on it.

'What's on it?' I said.

'It's a copy of some data from one of the gaming houses,' she said.

'Do you work..?' I stopped myself. It was none of my business.

'No,' she said. 'I don't work for them. I think you could say the opposite.'

'I see,' I said. Espionage was a big machine and I was but a little, occasional cog. I didn't need to know how she'd placed an order to herself on their behalf.

'Were you followed?'

'Yes, but I lost them.'

'I thought you would,' she said. 'Thank you. I don't have security, I like to think I don't need it.'

'I see,' I said. I groaned inside. I see, I see. She'd think it was all I had to say for myself.

'Let me show you out,' she said.

We walked back through to the hallway and for that moment it felt like the door to another world had been opened. I can't explain why. Maybe it was the woman. I wondered who she was because she was someone. Someone special. She opened the forbidding front door set in its stone archway.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I should introduce myself. That was one of the points of dragging you all the way out here, after all. My name is Étienne. I know who you are.'

I shook the hand she offered me. It was warm and soft but her handshake was firm.

The door shut with me on the wrong side; outside. The point of dragging me out here? There was a point? How did she know who I was? The city seemed to roar in my ears. I could hear every sound. The water, the sirens, the traffic. I shook my head, put the cash in my bag and went to unlock my bike. I had a ridiculous thing for red heads, that was all.

I rode back to my gondola. There was a kind of code that made it mine. The moon was turning orange in the distance, an autumn sign suggesting we'd skipped summer again. As I pushed off in the boat to give Minos the good news I looked back and saw the black car making a three point turn in the road. I wondered whose security they were.

# Chapter Two

I always found the problem with parties was that half way through I realised that the proportion of people I couldn't stomach to booze I could stomach was all wrong. There came a point where it didn't matter how much alcohol I poured down my neck, people still had an unerring ability to irritate and repulse. I was seldom found at parties I wasn't throwing myself, only accepting very particular invitations. A great party is rare and beautiful thing and I just knew the party we were on our way to wasn't going to be any of those things. I consoled myself. There was a certain pleasure to be had spending an hour at a function standing around with close friends making cruel and sarcastic comments about the other guests and their inability to dress, dance and, in the end, stand up. Besides, we didn't need to stay long.

We borrowed a car that was parked near the hotel. It was old, almost abandoned, and would only get us as far as the party. Not that there would have been much point giving it back after Roach ripped the door off while Minos was rooting around looking for something to pop the lock with.

'Where to?' Roach said as we all clambered in. 'I forgot.'

'To the Basin. It's an old warehouse under the Flyover,' Lola said. She was wearing a pair of skin tight jeans and a t-shirt with a revealing slash from the neck. 'Will you sit still?'

Minos was fidgeting around beside her. A fidgety Minos was a bad thing, an accident waiting to happen. 'It's this cash, it's uncomfortable.'

'It's in his underpants,' Casino said.

'I'm worried about it falling out of my pockets,' Minos said. 'It's safer there.'

'Poor Doodle,' I said. 'As if he hadn't got enough problems.'

'It will be nice to go to a party, 'Lola said. 'It's been a quiet week.'

'I can't believe we have to go to an arty party when we could be at Loop's birthday party in Queens,' Casino said. 'That's going to be the party of the decade.'

'Oh, I'm terribly sorry,' Lola said. 'I'm terribly sorry that I managed to get us tickets to the exact party Doodle picked as a drop off. How awful of me to bail us out of that particular hole. And Stark, he's desperately sorry as well.'

It was a fair point. Doodle was helping out with the catering at an Arts Academy party in the Basin, he wanted us to meet him there and give him the cash. He said he felt safe there because there was lots of security and it was a very exclusive guest list. It was a sensible place to meet, it would be heaving with people oblivious to anything that happened outside of their day to day worlds, a good place to keep a secret. Stark was very, very high up both in the Academy and Lola's estimation so he got us tickets. We did say we didn't need them but he insisted. He hadn't reacted very well to having to bail Lola and me out of an Enforce lock-up last time and, I guess, he was anxious to avoid having to bail all five of us out. He was, in many ways, our next of kin.

Roach drove in a most sedate manner and took the narrow lanes and backstreets to avoid any unwanted attention. My bike was stashed in my room, hanging from two hooks above my bed. Sometimes even me and the bike needed a break from each other. I missed it, of course, but I'd cope for a night. We passed through Queens on the way, prompting Casino to start complaining again until Lola silenced him with one of her looks. I liked Queens. It was a typical Friday night, quiet in the streets, too quiet some would say, but behind the closed doors I knew it was jumping. You could lose yourself in Queens, and people did. Sometimes a person would walk into Queens on a Monday and not emerge until Friday. Friday in a whole different year, sometimes a different decade. There were wall to wall musicians building new instruments out of whatever they found and playing them until they fell apart again. In a house on one street, near the old park where all the tents were, a DJ had been playing a set for almost seventeen years. Qool DJ Qronos just kept looping and scratching his only remaining vinyl through his computer set-up, and people kept coming to hear him to do it. I would have died of boredom if I were him. He did it in his sleep and survived on food people bought him because they wouldn't let him leave his decks. He got so fat one year that Minos helped put together a treadmill for him, it doubled as a handy generator.

The warehouse was under a tangle of flyovers and train lines, on an old industrial estate. There weren't legitimate wares to house there, so it had been colonised by various bootleggers and pirates, apart from one hangar-sized space which was used by our beloved administrators for cultural functions. The location was cheap but they could get round that embarrassment by claiming it was edgy. It was this illustrious space that the Arts Academy had commandeered for the evening. We abandoned the car just around the corner from the warehouse. The place looked deserted but standing there on the kerb I could feel a faint throb rising up through my feet, suggesting that the party had started, or at least the music had.

As we approached, a door opened in the huge, blank wall of the building. A man the size of Roach stood framed by the subdued light from inside.

'Brother,' he said.

'My man,' Roach said as they banged their fists together at the knuckles. Minos winced.

Roach squeezed through the doorway while Lola produced her invitation. She showed it to the doorman.

'No need, no need,' he said.

We filed past him, through the security arches which would scan us for contraband. He winked at me.

'Hey you, all right?' he said. 'Enforce are in.'

I nodded. 'Thanks Charlie.'

It was childish, but I got the giggles because the cash in Minos's underpants was making him walk funny. It would be the most fun I had that night. We couldn't agree on anywhere to stand so we walked him round and round until he complained about chaffing. By then I was in tears from laughing so hard. Roach deposited us near a sculpture made out of real human teeth and went to the bar.

'So what is this monstrosity?' Casino said.

'Art,' Lola said.

'Whose?'

'No idea,' she said.

'How come we don't know that?' Minos said, pulling at the crotch of his trousers like a small boy in urgent need of a toilet. 'We pride ourselves on knowing everything, surely?'

'It's an opening party, they unveil some work, except this time they're unveiling the artist,' Lola said. 'This stuff has been on display for ages. The surprise is who did it.'

'Do these people not have anything better to do?' Casino said.

Lola looked at him in that way she did when she wanted you to know that she wasn't going to be answering any more of your pesky questions. I shared Minos's anxiety. We knew a lot of things and a lot of people. It went with the territory. As we perpetrated our various misdemeanours throughout the day, we all relied on a range of contacts, who in turn relied on us. We all fancied ourselves as significant nodes on the underground network. This was becoming a habit, this not knowing key bits of information. It was an affront, was what it was. We'd still had no success finding out who Doodle owed the cash to. We'd even considered the possibility that he was lying but it didn't make any sense. Besides no one could fake fear like that. You could see it had settled just behind his eyes and become the lens through which he saw everything.

'Will you stand still?' Casino said to Minos a mere second before the whole sculpture behind us chattered into a pile of canines and molars on the floor. We melted into the crowd before us to find Roach and avoid the blame that was headed our way.

Roach was not hard to spot. He was the mountainous fellow carrying a dainty tray of drinks above his head. We steered him away from Minos's calamity and reassembled ourselves in a safe place, far from any art.

'Whose art was it?' Roach said.

He got the look from Lola.

'Sorry,' he said. 'Have a drink.'

'Look, I don't know whose private view it is,' Lola said. Stark didn't know either. He just said it would be marvellous.'

Lola modelled for Stark on occasion while pretending that they weren't having a very serious relationship. A pretence we all supported with gusto because they were great together, and Stark gave us access to a different world. There were Academies for all aspects of art and culture, as well as some sciences. If you were a member of the Arts Academy you could sell your work and reap the benefits of a lucrative and closed market. If you weren't, you could hang out in Queens and other artists' communities and swap sculptures made of cables and bottle tops for drugs and liquor. Or, if fate had dealt you that hand, you could have an office job and be a plastic doll, artistic ambitions forgotten. I knew which I would prefer. Stark was forever on the verge of having his membership of the Arts Academy revoked and so had all the best gossip. They couldn't get rid of him though, he was one of the cards that, if removed, could make the whole house fall down. The mystery artist was an Academy member, that much was certain. The smaller human body parts were very fashionable. Teeth, finger nails, hair – they were all the rage. There was a market for body parts, both the kind you could sell yourself while you were alive, and the kind your friends and family could harvest from your corpse. Times were hard.

Minos knocked his drink back and made a sound like the last gasp of a dying lizard. 'Rough,' he managed.

I felt as uncomfortable as Minos looked with his cash-packed pants. I was grateful that we were standing on the edge of everything with the wall at our backs, the better to see everyone else. The warehouse was a heaving mass of plastic dolls. A particular shape of nose seemed to be very popular among the women, while men were going for a chin with a dimple in it. There were two floors, one was a mezzanine level covering half the ground floor that we were on. Spotlights swept the dance floors, the bright, tight beams were casting the Imagination Industries logo. The DJ was one of Academy producers, he was mixing from the official list but people were dancing regardless. They didn't know any better. Looking across the dance floor it was clear that the current dance craze was for fitting and spasming, a style Minos had been pioneering for years. It looked painful and a little dangerous. I sipped my drink, it was so strong I couldn't taste the alcohol or feel the bridge of my nose. The bar ran the whole length of the room and the queue was about eight deep all the way along. All the bar staff were looking harassed. I couldn't see any food, never mind an endangered caterer.

'What do you think?' Casino said.

'About what?' I said.

'The art?'

Every ten metres or so a sculpture like a melted candle would rise up out of the crowd, similar to the one Minos had knocked over. From here they looked molten and fluid but close up they were made out of hard materials, like the teeth. Some were bone, some made of things I didn't recognise.

'Horrible,' I said.

Casino nodded in agreement. We stood there trying to muster up the energy and bile to start ripping shreds out of our fellow party goers but our hearts weren't in it. There was something not right but I couldn't put my finger on it. At a party like this a few renegades like us would have crept in and a party within a party would start and that would be fun for a while. But we stood out as obvious as the sculptures. The only other people near our economic status were working as doormen or bar staff. Minos and Lola were arguing about something and Roach was frowning as he chewed on the celery stick from his elaborate, non-alcoholic cocktail.

I finished my drink too fast and tried not to stagger at the white-hot hit of instant intoxication.

'All right?' Casino said, steadying me by the elbow.

'That is some cheap, nasty rum,' I said. 'Let's find Doodle and get out of here.'

'You coming to Loop's?'

'Yes. Tell the others.'

He relayed the message. Lola pouted.

'Stay then,' I said to her, knowing she wouldn't. 'You know people here. Surely?'

Lola knew a more respectable class of citizen than the rest of us. She was one of them after all. We had been born down-trodden and restless but Lola's father lived in the Riverside Sector with his fourth wife. No, fifth wife. Lola had been to a proper school, not that she'd studied there, but all the opportunities that life had snatched out of our reach had been afforded Lola. And she had turned up her little button nose at all of them. The only thing that Lola loved more than a glamorous pair of shoes and a night out was trouble, and trouble loved her much more than Daddy ever did.

'Come on,' she said. 'It's warming up.'

'Yeah, we may reach tepid by midnight,' I said.

'We need to find Doodle,' Roach said. 'Let's have one more and then go.' He did like a compromise.

'OK, let's spilt up. Lola, you and Roach get the drinks in and the rest of us will find Doodle. We'll meet back here in ten minutes with the noodle seller and the drinks, do what needs to be done and then go,' I said. 'Lola?'

'You win.' She tried a small pout but her heart wasn't in it.

We plunged into the crowd, all taking different directions. There's an art to traversing a room full of dancing people. The trick is to dance a little bit too and fill space as it appears. It was difficult with the current dance trend putting the dancer in danger of dislocation and the traverser in danger of a black eye at every beat, but I made steady progress through the sea of strangers.

'Ah, look see,' said a voice. 'It is Sorcha Blades. I am looking for you. It's break time.'

'Doodle. How's it going?'

He was standing in the middle of a group of identikit noses tottering on high heels who were dancing around him like he was a handbag. 'Not bad,' he said. 'That stupid man got Doodle's money?'

'Yes. Come with me.'

We disappeared back into the seething mass of sweating bodies. The music was faster, harder now and the crowd were working themselves up into some kind of frenzy that would be the talk of all the offices tomorrow. There were huge office blocks down south where hoards of these official citizens went to work. Who they worked for no one knew, but they generated more work and activity which kept the glowing green numbers flying around the world, making sure that it kept turning. They were like little bees flying about except there were no flowers and no queen. I guess they were more like wasps.

Doodle and I stood to attention waiting for the others to come back. The drinks returned first. Roach emerged from the crowd as dancing goons bounced off him instead of knocking him around as they had us. Lola popped out of the mass like a cork from a bottle, she looked dishevelled. Casino soon joined us. He hadn't troubled the dance floor. Casino didn't dance, he stood. He was known to pose on occasion, but there was never dancing.

'Drink, Doodle?' Roach said. 'Pick one.'

He held the tray down to Doodle and he swiped up two glasses and downed them one after the other. Minos tripped out of the crowd and skidded across the floor. Roach stepped out of the way and Minos hit his head on the wall.

Lola nodded toward two figures approaching us. 'What are they doing here? Honestly, what kind of girl does Stark think I am, inviting me to a party they'd go to?'

'Kind who gets kit off for money,' Doodle said. 'That's what I hear anyway.'

Lola rose above this comment, not even bothering with a look for Doodle, she must have felt very sorry for him indeed.

'Relax,' I said. 'They're working.'

Tixylix and Vermina were Enforce. They were high up in the division that covered the NW sector and therefore our patch. We crossed paths with monotonous regularity. They weren't as violent as Latch but they could cause similar sized problems. Tixylix was average. He looked average, he talked average, he thought average. He was beige personified. Once he worked out that this was his greatest asset he would be flying, but he was too average to make that leap of logic. Vermina on the other hand was anything but average. She was extraordinary.

'And what do we have here?' Tixylix said.

We all stared at him with all the blank insolence we could muster, and we could muster a lot, it was almost a specialism.

'How did you get in?' Vermina said. She was wearing black. It was a good colour on her, just like all the other colours.

'We were invited,' Minos said, rubbing his head.

'I find that very hard to believe,' Tixylix said. He pulled a small scanner out of his pocket. 'Could I see your invitations, please?'

Predictable, I thought. They had Enforce working high level security and Tixylix wanted to play the bouncer. He got to me and I pulled my invitation out of the air. Stark had made them all out to us in person in his elegant handwriting.

'A full house of invitations and a member of staff,' he said. 'Shame. That would have been worth a favour, eh Lola?'

Lola gave him her bored face. It was the best work of art in the place. Tixylix arranged his own face into a study of averageness and strode off. Vermina peeled herself off the wall she was leaning against, but didn't quite manage to wipe the sardonic smile off her face.

'Attending official events now, are we?' she said in my ear. 'With the proper invitation. I would have said that wasn't really your style.'

She looked at me with that look that let me know that she knew I was up to something, then sauntered off in vague pursuit of her sidekick. The others were staring at me until I stopped staring after her and turned back to them, when they all looked away. They were very suspicious of me and Vermina and not without good reason. I shrugged and braved another swig of drink.

'Where Doodle's money?' said Doodle. 'This party is annoying me now. It's much less annoying in the kitchen.'

'I can imagine,' I said.

'Money, stupid man, give me the money,' Doodle said.

'OK, OK,' Minos said, thrusting his hand into his trousers.

Roach backed away with the tray of drinks he was holding so that he would still be holding them and not wearing them.

'What you doing?' Doodle said, unprepared for Minos to rummage around in his crotch.

'The money, I'm getting the money.'

'Money is in stupid man's pants?'

'Yeah,' Minos pulled out an envelope and gave it to Doodle. 'Safety first.'

'It's warm,' Doodle sighed. 'Everyday Doodle think things will improve. Everyday things get more disgusting and messed up.'

'And what if I'd lost it?' Minos said.

'There's more than two grand here,' Doodle walked two fingers through the corners of the notes in the envelope.

'Eight grand more,' I said.

'There's ten?'

'All of it,' Roach said.

Doodle blinked hard several times. I thought he might cry.

'Do you need a ride?' I said. I felt bad for him.

'No, you best stay out of Doodle's problems. Curiosity kills people too,' he said. 'Thank you for money. I know you get it.'

'We all got it,' I said as he wandered back to the kitchen.

We finished our drinks, silent other than for the odd gasp and groan. The only thing rougher than alcohol with an official licence was the state of your tongue the morning after. There were a lot of expert homebrewers about but we got our booze through the dock where Minos worked. You had to drink it by the shipment, rather than the case, but sometimes needs must and we had those kind of needs. We made our way to the nearest fire exit hoping to make a discreet departure.

'It's locked,' Minos rattled the u-lock.

'Naughty,' Roach said.

'It's to stop people letting their friends in,' Casino said. 'Although I'd only let in people I didn't like.'

'Let's go out through the entrance,' Roach said. 'Charlie will let us out.'

We were almost there, almost home free, when the music stopped and everyone turned towards the mezzanine level where the more exclusive invitees were ensconced. A man emerged from the huddle of his entourage, there was a lot of backslapping and handshaking as he made his way to the rail of the balcony. We stopped despite ourselves. The man was handsome beyond belief. It was quite wonderful. If he was real he was blessed with some amazing genes, if he wasn't his plastic surgeon was a genius. It was his private view, his unveiling.

'Oh, my,' Lola said.

'I hear you,' Casino said. 'He is beautiful.'

'Ladies and gentleman,' said a master of ceremonies who looked like a hideous mass of birth defects next to the exquisite Academic. 'Give it up for Agent Tourniquet.'

'Give it up?' I said to no one. 'Give it up? Who says that?'

The crowd went crazy. Well, they went the Work and Labour, plastic doll version of crazy which is to say that they jumped up and down clapping and cheering. If we'd have been in Queens, or even at home, and the crowd went crazy at least ten people would need medical treatment and the next day the rest wouldn't be able to raise their voices above a hoarse whisper. And the tinnitus would be epic and epidemic.

Agent Tourniquet surveyed the crowd like he owned them, which in a way he did. Then he caught my eye and I realised that even I was staring at him. For a moment I thought I recognised him, not from a picture or the television but from somewhere real. But that was impossible, there's no way our paths could have crossed and me not remember. His eyes were the colour of dark chocolate. He looked at me like he was answering a question in his head.

'Let's go,' I said, tearing myself away.

Charlie moved the queue of people trying to get in aside so we could pass. He counted us out and let five people in. I could hear Charlie's earpiece chattering non-stop, he gestured to let Roach know that he would be in touch. The queue was getting restless. At least this crowd wouldn't protest, they would send a message of complaint somewhere, perhaps even employing the strongest terms, but they would never know the life affirming joy of an honest burst of heartfelt protest. We walked down the street in the opposite direction to the queue until the line of taxis and SUVs ended. Our car had gone.

'People in this city will steal anything,' Roach said.

'Everyone's a player,' I sighed in agreement.

As we wandered down the street in search of transport I could still feel the bass through my soles. It was a strange feeling, like it was trying to upset my heartbeat in some way.

'This is a nice motor,' Roach said.

And it was. It was new. A pearlescent, ruby colour, sleek and extravagant. They made so few new cars they all had a number etched onto them, this one was 309/350. Minos insisted that Roach didn't rip the doors off so we waited while he worked a piece of wire he found lying around down into the door panel and popped the lock. These new cars didn't have alarms because alarms didn't stop anyone from stealing the car and the parts were running out. Instead the company ran a whole campaign about how if the car was stolen they would replace it. The catch was that you had to get a crime number from Enforce to prove it and that took a lot of time and a lot of money. The company would make you another car under the same issue number. Some people collected issue numbers. The person who owned this 309 might have a few other luxury items numbered 309 knocking around back home. It was a strange hobby to have, but maybe there wasn't much fun to be had in the Riverside sector.

The car still had that brand new smell and we all inhaled in thrall as we climbed in. Lola, as the smallest, got the seat behind Roach who had to push the driver's seat right back so he could get behind the wheel. I sat between Lola and Casino in the back and Minos took the passenger seat.

'That's funny,' Roach started the engine. 'The clock says no miles.'

'It can't,' Minos said. 'The car didn't fall out of the sky. Maybe the parts have run out and it's just for show.'

'Come on, let's get to Queens,' Casino said.

'Do you realise that that was the best party that some of those people have ever been to?' Lola said. She'd come round to our way of thinking.

'Probably the best they ever will,' I said. 'Even the party we had when that Enforce unit took all the booze and the sound system was better.'

'That was a fine dominoes tournament,' Roach said.

'Didn't you win?' Casino said to Roach.

'You know what they say,' Minos said. 'Lucky in dominos.'

The car seemed to glide along as Roach took the road out of the city so we could see what it could do. Loop's party would still be going on in two days time so there was no hurry to get there, not now we were having fun. The car could do very fast, is what it could do, and very, very fast. We were clear of the city in no time at all and flying along the old motorway out west. We raced some bikers on their customised machines but even their legendary speed was no match for our new car. Funny then, that we should have been followed.

'It is following us,' Roach said.

'It can't be,' Lola said. 'We're too fast.'

'I'm telling you, it's been following us,' Roach was insistent. 'It falls back sometimes but then there it is again.'

'Shall we go back to the city?' Casino said.

'Gets my vote,' Lola said.

'Mine too,' Minos said. 'I think Roach is right. It is following us.'

'What if comes back to city with us?' Casino said.

'At least then we'll know if we're definitely being followed,' I said. 'That will be a comfort.' I don't subscribe to the ancient maxim that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Roach put his foot further down until the next exit, we took it at speed. He then took the eastbound route back to the city, losing speed until he could settle the car into the slow lane.

'What are you doing?' Casino said.

'Waiting for our new friend,' Roach said. 'Just to make sure.'

We all looked back through the rear window, Minos stretching around in his seat to see. The road behind was empty. We waited. When nothing happened the three of us in the back turned around.

'See?' Lola said. 'You all worry too much.'

'No we don't,' Minos was still looking out of the rear window. 'Look.'

Two headlights were behind us. And they were gaining. Roach floored the accelerator and Minos almost flew into our laps. Roach took diversion after diversion, doubling us back on ourselves but we couldn't shake the car behind. It was following us, but worse than that, it was no longer hiding that fact.

'What are we going to do?' Casino said. He could be a bit shrill in a crisis.

'We'll lose him when we get to the city,' I said.

'We better,' Roach said. 'Because the mileage thing isn't broken and that makes me feel very suspicious.'

'Stop the car,' Lola said. 'I want to get out.'

'We're in the middle of nowhere,' Casino said.

'Worse than nowhere,' I said. 'We're in the countryside.'

'Let's not panic,' Roach said. 'We just need a good plan.'

The car behind was getting closer and closer. It was upon us before we could muster even half a bad plan. Our only chance was the city and we could see the lights in the distance.

'Take the Flyover,' I said. 'Go in through Hyde Gate. We've got more options down there. We can go south if we have to.'

'You'll have to direct me,' Roach said, knowing that it took a courier to know the city.

'Switch with me,' Minos said.

There was then a charming interlude during which Minos and I swapped seats, Casino got his manhood stepped on and Roach would have lost an eye had he been shorter. We did manage to stay on the road and Lola had a good chuckle despite herself, so it wasn't all bad.

'Take this exit and we'll hit the Flyover,' I said.

The Flyover was the highest road in the city. They shut it if the winds were coming from the north. There was a rare speed limit on some stretches to make sure the cars stayed on the road as it snaked through the western reaches of the city with its strange curved sides and stranger disregard for health and safety. It was the pinnacle of engineering when it was built before the flood, flowing through the city like the ribbon on a medal, but like everything else it had been left to fall apart. The inside of our car was lit up by the headlights of our pursuer's. I could tell Roach dare not go any faster, not while there was no barrier between us and the massive drop over the edge. The car behind surged forward and I don't think any of us could believe it the first time that it nudged our bumper. After the third time we got the idea. Roach yanked on the handbrake as the other car began to pull alongside and we spun around, only missing it by inches. I watched out of the passenger window as the other car passed us. It was like a ballet. The windows of the other car were blacked out. We came to an abrupt halt facing the way we had come. It felt like an age went by as we caught our breath and then we were off again, driving the wrong way down the road.

'Is that the car that was following you the other night?' Minos grabbed my arm. He was shouting.

'I don't know,' I said.

'Think, think.'

I thought. 'No. It's not the same make. The other car was bigger.'

Again the car caught us. Again they drove into us. Everyone was talking at once, plotting, trying to come up with an escape plan. It was alongside, nudging us over toward the edge until it swung away and then back hard. The second to last thing I remember was the noise the window made as my head smashed into it. It was an odd pop that I found surprising for some reason. I expected something different. The last thing I remember was the very strange whine the engine made as the wheels span and span as we fell through space.

I could see Casino through my eyelashes. He was looking at me with his head on one side like a puzzled bird. I tried to open my eyes further but they refused. Everything hurt. It was all too sharp and bright. I closed my eyes and everything drifted away.

'Hello?'

Me?

'Hello, can you hear me?'

Yes. I can.

'Sorcha?'

That's me.

'Anything?'

Where am I?

'No, she's still out.'

I am. I'm still out.

Roach was sitting up in bed reading. I'd never seen him with a book before. I banged on the window between the corridor and his room, regretting it as the sound pounded through my temples like a herd of something big and loud. He looked up, grinned and gave me a thumbs-up. There wasn't a scratch on him. I suspected I should find it all most peculiar but my brain wasn't working. It was like being thick and I was regretting all the mockery I'd directed at stupid people.

'What's going on?' I pushed the door to his room open.

'No idea,' he shrugged.

'What are you reading?'

'A book,' even he sounded surprised.

We were in a hospital. Everything was either white or shiny and it was all new, so new that some things hadn't been unwrapped from the plastic they were delivered in. All the medical people wore paper masks over their noses and mouths and had their hair covered, so they were just pairs of eyes in scrubs. It was hard to tell who you'd already met and who you hadn't. They all carried passes which they used to get in and out of the ward. It was impossible to tell what was on the other side of the door. Maybe we weren't in a hospital, maybe it was a facility. I couldn't gather my thoughts together enough to worry about it, even in a vague sort of way, like it was all off at some distance. I wondered in the idlest way who ran it and why they seemed to have equipment that the Welfare Ministry claimed not to be able to find, never mind afford to buy. I slept and I dreamt that everything was flying through the air except me. I was landing.

'I can't believe you're more injured than Minos,' Casino said. 'The whole world order has been rearranged.'

My heart was still pounding from the fright he'd given me. 'Don't jump out on me like that,' I said. 'You could have been the death of me.'

'I was right there,' he grinned. He'd already customised his hospital pyjama top so it was nipped in at the waist a little. His trousers were rolled up too. 'You looked terrible.'

He was right, I did. The others looked like they always did, Minos managed to somehow look better, just a little bit sweaty. But I looked bad enough for all of us. I was all different colours; black and blue, red, a little bit of yellow. Occasionally I went white, then grey and then green. They said it would take me a little longer to recover, but they didn't say why.

'We can't leave until we can all leave together,' Lola said. 'I can't find out why, but there it is.'

'So, you have to concentrate on getting better,' Minos said.

They were all looking at me with worried faces.

I felt grey and then green again. 'I need to lie down,' I said. 'And to be sick. But not necessarily in that order.'

# Chapter Three

At last I was wearing clothes, instead of one of those hospital gowns with altogether too much ventilation in the rear. Not my own clothes, they were covered in bodily fluids, all my own and almost the full range, and they had been burnt. I was wearing new clothes that Casino had selected from some lost property cupboard, which was somewhat suspicious in that all the clothes still had the credit tags on them.

'And you are feeling perfectly fine,' a set of scrubs and two pale blue eyes asked me.

'Yes,' I said. 'When can we go home?'

'Well.'

That was all he said. Well. He said it in a neutral way that I found disappointing in its lack of affirmation. Roach, Lola and Casino were standing on the other side of the glass that ran along one side of my room from waist height to ceiling. I pulled a face indicating I wasn't happy with how things were going. They also thought I felt fine, I was our ticket out of there and we were all starting to get tetchy with each other. We didn't tend to argue that much, just bicker a little, but we were starting to get on each other's nerves.

'What does "well" mean?' I tried not to blink as my non-committal friend shone a blinding light into my eye.

'Nothing.'

'Nothing?'

'Nothing,' he swiped around on his tablet for a bit and then swept out of the room. They never left our notes anywhere we could find them, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I figured I was winning because I ought to be dead, all things considered, but still, it would have been nice to put a name to some of the parts that hurt.

'What did he say?' Casino stuck his head round the door.

'Nothing,' I said.

'That's funny because my doctor told me the same thing,' Lola followed Roach and Casino into the room. 'Nothing. Even after I gave him the eyes.'

The eyes was a technique Lola used to bend a certain type of man to her will. I had no idea how or why it worked because as far I could make out she just looked at them and blinked. It did work though, but only when she did it. Her facial expressions were like a wardrobe, she had a range of looks for every occasion.

'Where's Minos?' I said.

'He had an accident,' Lola said.

'What kind of accident?'

'Can you believe he set his bed on fire?' Casino said.

I could and yet I couldn't. How had he managed that in a hospital? If it was a hospital, it was feeling less and less like a hospital. Where were the other patients? Why couldn't they tell if I was fine? Why did they wear medical clothes like disguises? How long had we been here?

'Why is that thermometer rolling around like that?' Casino said. He picked it up. It was one of those ones you stick in your ear. It had been sliding from one side of the bedside table to the other. I had a funny feeling behind my eyes. Like something was wriggling around in there.

'We have to get out of here,' I said. 'I feel fine.'

We had dinner in a small room that was empty except for a small table with five chairs around it. There was a security camera in the corner of the room but we'd got used to ignoring that and watching what we talked about. Once every few minutes it would move as though looking for something more interesting to spy on. The room had a window that looked out on a peaceful mountain scene, but it wasn't real. The screen looped every four minutes so that the lone cow in the alpine landscape was destined to walk from one side of the picture to the other and never back again. It was an endless trail of cow. Our meals were all sealed inside foil pouches as though we were astronauts.

'Maybe we're in space,' Lola said.

'We're not in space,' Roach said. 'We are on the ground.'

'How do you know? We could be anywhere,' Minos said, who much to my huge surprise was not covered in bandages. He just looked a bit greasy. He was also very quiet, but then we were all quite subdued. I figured it was because we were feeling trapped.

'This food is not bad,' Roach said. 'Given that it's probably completely synthetic.'

'I'd kill for one of Greasy Clive's breakfasts,' Minos said. 'I'd kill any of you.'

'If you let me live I'll shout you a number seven with extra bacon,' I said.

'Any other offers?' Minos said.

But no one was really listening. Casino and Lola were tucking into their dinner, Roach had already finished his and had settled back in his chair with his hands folded over his chest looking peaceful. The only sound was that of our cutlery scraping the plates. I wasn't hungry but at least eating was something to do. The dizzying combination of acute mystery and intense boredom was making me anxious. Then Roach let out a snore. I looked up and Casino had also nodded off, his head was on the table. Lola's eyelids were closing like they were too heavy for her to keep open.

'Oh dear,' she said. 'I'm very sleepy all of a sudden.'

Minos looked horrified as she slipped off her chair, by the time she made it to the floor she was asleep.

'It must be the food,' Minos looked at his empty plate in terror.

'Don't be ridiculous,' I said. 'Why would they put sedatives in the food? We've been no trouble at all.'

Minos yawned and put his hands over his mouth to stifle it, his eyes were like saucers. Minos had such an expressive face, it was all rubbery. He tried to hold his eyes wide open with his fingers but he too started to fall asleep.

'OK,' I said to the camera in the corner. 'I'll come quietly.'

I lay on the floor and curled up with my head on the crook of my elbow, it must have taken me all of about three seconds to fall asleep.

And then I woke up in my own bed.

I'm sure lots of things happened in between and I'd love to remember them but I slept through them and that's all I know. I was in a car falling from the Flyover and then I was in a hospital, then my own bed. I could have called that many things but I chose to call it progress.

I lay in bed for a bit, assessing how I was feeling and how many things hurt. My head hurt but everything else seemed to be back to normal. I spent some time staring at my bike as it hung above my bed. It was a little scratched and worn but it was still silver and beautiful. I thought it looked like it had missed me, maybe. I pulled it from its hooks and I rode it down the hallway to the lift. A ride could fix everything. On the ground floor, the lobby was calm and quiet so I rode in sweeping arcs through the huge rooms looking for company. Only Minos seemed to be up. He was fiddling around with his computers in the restaurant. I could smell burning.

'Morning,' he said.

'It is?'

'Yeah, it's quarter past ten in the morning on the tenth. We've been away for two weeks.'

'Two weeks?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'But what's really going to mess with your mind is that all our sickness notification has been updated. Officially we've been in isolation due to a type of simian influenza that is as yet unidentified. I got it from Happy Chicken Valley which has been closed down permanently. I now work at Mr Magico's House of Meatballs. That sounds awesome.'

'Have I got a better paid job?' I said.

'I'm afraid not,' he said. 'You are still a pauper. A very fit pauper but a pauper none the less.'

The money at Packet was terrible, even for a top flight courier such as myself, but it was a Ministry sanctioned job and kept officials off my back while I pursued more lucrative schemes. The job at Packet gave me a citizen card which afforded me access to minimal healthcare, almost drinkable water, a small amount of rationed food and some electricity. It also meant that you weren't arrested, put on a boat and set adrift in the ocean. Minos wasn't cut out for the world of legitimate work, it gave him a rash, but needed an official job for his citizen status, his actual job of pirate simply wouldn't do as far as the Ministry of Work and Labour was concerned. He didn't go to another job, he just adjusted the shift accounts and salary spreadsheets by hacking into the Ministry databases. They had a bespoke system built years ago. It cost them a huge amount and didn't work. It featured such big security holes that each one came with a welcome mat and complimentary pair of slippers. If we were going to be rigid about it I should have been fiddling the system for him. He was hardware and I was software. He built the machines and I told them what to do. But he had a tolerance for databases that I didn't share. Besides, I had to have a job and he didn't. It was unfair. Minos may have had a shadowy virtual self who existed only in administrative databases but the others, like me, had the necessary jobs. Roach worked security for a private firm that hired out huge men to stop people taking things that weren't theirs. He'd managed to get a posting guarding the north dock where Minos and his pirate mates took things that weren't theirs. He was their man on the inside and got the best of both worlds. Casino worked at Packet with me. Lola didn't need to work, she had an allowance and was registered as her father's daughter and therefore exempt from usual Work and Labour laws. She didn't even need a citizen card. It was how the other half lived. I wasn't sure what arrangement she had with her family, or what arrangement her family had with the authorities, but it was manners not to ask.

'Well, at least we're covered. Happy days,' I said.

'Weird though,' Minos looked worried.

'Has anyone touched anything here?' I looked round. Nothing seemed out of place.

'No. Everything was locked up as tight as it would be if we'd done it ourselves,' he flicked on the EF-47 scanner and the usual Enforce activity fizzed through. 'Nothing has changed.'

I left my bike and went out to the kitchen that we used as a kitchen, as opposed to the kitchen we used as a bike workshop or the kitchen we used to hide stolen goods.

'The fridge is how we left it as well,' Minos said from the restaurant. We had an intercom. 'Empty.'

I sighed. The fridge door swung open of its own accord to prove his point.

'I'm going to the shop,' I said into the intercom. 'Do you want anything?'

'No, thanks. I thought I might have a barbeque later if you're interested.'

I slammed the door of the fridge and it hummed at me in protest.

The street outside was just how we'd left it as well. Littered with everything. Rubbish, people, dirt and jammed cars. It was a grey day and the sky was too close to the ground. A watcher balloon hung overhead, a brown blimp sweeping the area with its nosey cameras. Drones flew over every so often, heading south, low and silent. It was a quiet day with no security alerts so the sky wasn't as busy as usual. I rode up towards the market hoping to find a shop stocked and open on the way. I didn't want to see Doodle, but I didn't want to not see him and only see an empty space where his stall should be. I couldn't decide which would be worse. In our two week absence a new shop had opened. It was open-fronted, which was a bold move, its wares spilling out into the street. It seemed to sell everything, they even had some vegetables which was pretty unusual given the price of the licence you needed to sell them. Some people bought them from the roofs where the sky people grew their own and then sold what they couldn't eat. It was a lottery but much cheaper than getting them in a shop, which most people couldn't afford to do. You could spot those people because they had scurvy and rickets and other old fashioned problems. I locked the bike to a bent railing and activated a security device or two. I wandered up and down the narrow aisles, touching things in wonder. The shop had fruit as well, which was a miracle, the last time I saw an actual banana I was about five. The apples smelt incredible. I filled a basket with greens and reds and yellows. I picked up some water and some rice. There hadn't been real rice for years.

'Hello!'

'Hello,' I said, looking around to see who had bellowed.

'Hello,' said a small round lady. 'I am Haggia.'

'Hello,' I said. I don't usually tell people my name straight off, particularly not this person, who I recognised from the market the day Minos had knocked over Doodle's stall.

'Welcome to my shop,' she looked me up and down. I was not looking my smartest in cropped jeans, not very clean, cycling tights and a t-shirt, not very clean either. 'You live in the hotel round the corner, no?'

I looked down at her with immense suspicion. She was much, much smaller than me. I am tall so lots of people are short in my opinion, but this woman was so short she was as wide as she was tall. She looked like a jolly bauble. She was swathed in a huge piece of purple material and almost every finger sported a fat, golden ring. She was impossible to place, either in terms geographical or historical. She didn't seem to have her notepad on her.

'I only ask because I am looking for someone from the hotel. I need to talk to them.' She took my basket and waddled off to the counter. I followed her at a safe distance.

'Do you know what time it is?' she said as though she had just remembered something.

'It's about ten thirty,' I said, fishing around in my pockets for a card with some credits on it so I could pay the woman and get the hell out of there.

'You are a bit early, my darling,' Haggia said. 'You'll have to wait a minute, he's always late you see.'

'Who is?' I asked her back as it disappeared, along with the rest of her, down an aisle.

'Are you feeling better?' she blundered back with an aubergine. I tried not to stare at it in wonder.

'Better than what?'

'Better than just after the accident I should think,' Haggia said.

'Accident?' I said.

'I am sorry,' she said. 'I meant the flu. Monkey flu, was it?'

I frowned at her while I thought of some appropriate remark. She didn't look like Enforce, or Administration. But how did she know about that accident and the flu and where had she got all this stock from?

'Hello,' said a voice behind me.

There was a man in there somewhere, lost in the general air of abstraction that surrounded him. He looked as though a large part of him, the logical sensible part, was somewhere else. The part that was here, the forgetful chaotic part, had dressed him and dragged something through his hair. No part of his suit match any other, his tie was done up in a bow as though it were a shoe lace and his trench coat was inside out. If he'd told me he was some kind of genius I would have believed him.

'I'm Marshall Dailly,' he said. 'Hello.'

The name sounded familiar.

'Am I late, I'm sorry. Or are you early? You're often early right? Sorcha Blades, yes? I recognised the bike,' Marshall said.

'Yes,' I said, although in response to which question I didn't make clear.

'I'm a reporter. I report things on the television,' he said. 'I'm not a journalist, don't worry. I just report what happens. No fancy editorial or working lunches in the Riverside. I live round the corner. I'm one of you.'

I wasn't sure why I needed to know all this, but at least I knew where I knew the name from. He was the television equivalent of wallpaper and could be found on the round the clock local news channel.

'How are you? Marshall winked and then did a passable impression of a monkey with a terrible cold.

'Fine,' I turned to Haggia. 'Look, I'm kind of busy, can I just pay for these?'

'Pay for them?' Haggia said. 'They're on the house, my dear.'

'Why?'

'Why?' Haggia said. 'Because...'

'It's all right,' Marshall said. 'She's the right one, I checked.'

'Right,' I said, holding the frayed end of my tether in my figurative hand. 'What's going on here?'

Haggia squeezed herself behind the counter and pressed a large blue button on the wall next to the telecom cards. The shutter in front of the shop began to close. I sighed my most exasperated sigh and sat on a pile of rice sacks that was sitting next to a shelf of eggs, it really was a remarkable shop.

'So, darling,' Haggia leant one of her chins on her pudgy hands. 'We figured it would all have started by now and we're here to help. We're on your side.'

'That's our sole purpose,' Marshall said. 'To help.'

'To help how?' I said.

'Well, have you noticed anything strange happening?' Marshall said.

He came to stand by the counter so they were both peering down at me. I would have stood up but I was too tired all of a sudden.

'Yes,' I said. 'I mean no. Like what?'

They looked at each other.

'Well. You tell us, dear,' Haggia said.

'Yes, otherwise we can't help,' Marshall said.

'We are here to help,' Haggia said.

'Right,' I said.

The shop was quite dark now that the shutter was closed, having crushed a crate of pak choi and a bucket of flip flops on its way down. I knew there was an exit at the back which would lead out to an alleyway from where I could either climb the wall into the gardens behind or run down the alley and get Emirhan at the kebab shop to let me escape through his kitchen. I could pick the bike up later.

'For example,' Marshall said. 'Can you do anything you couldn't do before the accident?'

'How do you know about the accident?' I said, leaping to my feet.

'There we are,' Marshall said. 'She's got it.'

'Right. If someone doesn't tell me what is going on in the next two minutes I'm going to walk out of here and never come back,' I said. I hadn't got anything.

'Now don't get angry,' Marshall said. 'We're on your side.'

'This is going all wrong,' Haggia raised her hands to the ceiling and made an unknown but intense gesture.

'Leave this to me,' Marshall said to Haggia. 'We're going to have to improvise.'

He steepled his fingers beneath his nose and exhaled, his eyes turned to the ceiling. I couldn't help but look up there to see what they were both so interested in. Then he turned to me with an expression so serious that I wanted to giggle despite my intense irritation.

'Have you noticed anything strange since your accident?' he made rabbits ears around the word accident with two fingers on each hand.

'No,' I said.

'No funny things happening like, I don't know, like things flying around.'

'No.'

'People disappearing and not being where they should be?'

'No.'

'People knowing secrets they shouldn't or being able to finish your sentences?'

'No.'

They looked at each other.

'Are you sure?' Haggia said.

'Yes,' I said.

'Nothing at all?' Marshall said

'Nothing.'

'Not even an unexplained fire or two?' Haggia said. 'I would have put money on that one.'

Fire. The smell of burning this morning. Minos set his bed on fire in the hospital.

'Yes?' Marshall said.

'I knew it,' Haggia slapped the counter in her excitement.

'There was a fire, it seemed weird,' I said. 'But Minos is the clumsiest person on earth so I didn't really...'

I trailed off. I didn't really what? I stood up again. My brain was wriggling behind my eyes. The shutter flew up with such force that it almost embedded itself in the ceiling. The noise from the street seemed too loud after the hushed quiet of the shuttered shop. Marshall and Haggia exchanged a look that suggested an event had just occurred that meant something to them. Nothing meant a single thing to me.

'I have to go,' I was confused.

'Of course, just let me bag these up for you, like I said no charge,' Haggia said, gesturing for Marshall to move, shooing him away as though he was an unwanted chicken. 'Now, you go home and get some rest. You're a bright one, you are, it'll all be OK.'

'Right,' I picked up the bag of vegetables, defeated.

'We've made contact now, that's the main thing,' Haggia said. 'We're here to help you. With anything.'

I ambled into the street. Stunned.

'With anything,' Marshall said.

'There is something you can help me with,' I said as they assembled on the doorstep by the broccoli.

'What?' Haggia said.

'There's these two people, I think they might be insane and in need of immediate medical assistance,' I said. 'I don't suppose you could get them some help?'

'I should think so,' Haggia fished her notepad out of a pocket in her voluminous dress. 'What are their names?'

'Haggia and Marshall Dailly,' I said. 'Either they're mad or they think I am.'

I left them with that suggestion simmering in their muddled minds and went home. To bed. As recommended by the nut in the new shop. I wondered if some kind of mass psychosis has set in while we'd been away.

I tossed and turned for a couple of hours without sleeping. I was beset with small disasters. The blinds wouldn't stay closed, it seemed they preferred dancing up and down instead, the stereo kept coming on, the door kept locking and unlocking itself, opening a little in between as though it was testing something out. It was like being in a horror film. Minos and Casino must have been up to their practical jokes again. Every time I got my jumble of thoughts in a neat and tidy line something would happen and disturb them all. In the end I got up to find someone to distract me from the feeling that my brain was squirming around behind my eyes. Maybe it was trying to escape. I couldn't blame it.

I found Minos being furtive in the garden, he was burying something. I watched him from the tradesmen's entrance until he had finished. He looked up from his mystery and gave me a sheepish grin.

'Find some food?' he said.

'Found some food, lost my appetite,' I couldn't be bothered to ask him about his mysterious burial. 'Drink?'

'Oh, yes,' he said, clapping his hands together. They were covered in ash, a dark cloud puffed up as his hands met. 'It's definitely time for a drink.'

We wandered through the hotel to the lounge bar, which was the more elegant of our bars since we held an arts festival one weekend that trashed the gallery bar. There was still no sign of the others. I poured Minos a large scotch and fixed myself a mojito. Casino had left his dressing gown, or house coat as we were supposed to call it, on the end of the bar, next to an empty cocktail glass with a forlorn cherry in it. We each sat on a bar stool and for the first time ever I couldn't work out the best way of saying what I had to say to him. He was the easiest person in the world to talk to, even easier than Roach who wouldn't judge you even if you begged him to. As I watched Minos in the mirror behind the bar, between the optics, I could have sworn he was having the same problem. It made me feel miserable. He looked pretty down too.

'Listen,' we said at the same time. 'This is going to sound ridiculous....sorry....you go....no you.'

He pointed at me and sipped his drink so I took another deep breath.

'OK. So, I went to the new shop round the corner'

'There's a new shop?'

'Yes, but that's not the point,' I said.

'Sorry, go on,' Minos rubbed the damp ring his glass had left on the bar with his sleeve.

'This woman works there, Haggia, and this other man came in. That news reporter from the community station, Marshall something.'

'Dailly, is it?'

'Yes, that's it. Haggia and Marshall Dailly. Do you know them? Or does one of the others maybe?'

'I don't. I only know Dailly from the news, as you say. I'm sure no one else does. Why?' Minos put his glass down and lifted it up. There was another ring.

'Because they seemed to know all about the accident. And they asked a lot of questions that I didn't like.'

'Like what?' His chin sounded like sandpaper as he rubbed his stubble.

'Like if anything strange had happened since the accident.'

'Apart from that freaky hospital and getting back here to find everything has been looked after better that it would have been if we were here?'

'They knew about the flu,' I said. 'They were on about whether people were disappearing or things flying around or people knowing things they shouldn't and fires starting.'

'Fires starting?' Minos almost fell of his stool.

'Yeah.' I looked at him. I could feel my face had pulled itself into an expression of wide-eyed alarm, it didn't feel like my face, it never looked like that.

Minos pulled me closer and then whispered, 'I need to tell you something.'

'What?'

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. 'I can set things on fire.'

'What?'

'I can set things on fire.'

'With matches?'

'No.'

'With what then?'

'Well, sometimes by accident, but sometimes by thinking a thought like I might just set that dressing gown on fire,' he said.

Casino's dressing gown started to smoulder. Lazy smoke rose from it in an elegant spiral. I watched it as it made its way to the smoke sensor on the ceiling.

Oh dear,' I said. I couldn't think of anything else to say, it was most unlike me.

'My housecoat,' Casino appeared at the end of the bar.

He did. He appeared. Out of nowhere.

And then the smoke set the sprinkler system off. We just stood there for a moment, getting soaked, watching a naked Casino trying to help put out the fire in his dressing gown. House coat. Then we made a dash for the hallway, out of the indoors rain.

I grabbed Casino by the arm. 'Where did you come from and why don't you have any clothes on?'

'I took them off,' he said. 'He can set things on fire with his mind.'

'Will no one talk sense?' I said. 'Clothes?'

'I don't need them if no one can see me,' he said, prising my fingers from his arm. 'I would have thought that was obvious.'

All the doors in the broad corridor opened for a moment and then closed themselves. I wondered for a moment why the emergency fire system would do that, but then it was smart enough to know that the fire was only in the lounge bar so maybe it could do that too.

The fire in the lounge bar. The fire that Minos started, with a thought. The fire that he started with a thought, in Casino's house coat. The house coat that Casino didn't need if no one could see him. Because he could make himself appear out of nowhere. The doors opened themselves again. One after the other, like dominoes. Then they slammed in unison.

'Fix that. And stop that sprinkler,' I said and exercised my right to storm off.

# Chapter Four

I sat in the deep end of the empty hotel swimming pool beside a jug of mojito. The pool did have water in it at some point, but it was more fun and less trouble empty. We filled it with balls once, that was great. All kinds of balls, beach balls, footballs, tennis balls. We jettisoned the golf balls early on because we found they caused bruises and fractured cheekbones. I pondered those days for a while and renamed them the good old days. That made me feel ancient. Ancient and unhappy. I was just getting right into being ancient and unhappy when I heard the others come through the double doors above and tip tap over the tiled floor. One by one they climbed down the ladder and dropped the foot or so to the bottom of the pool. They assembled before me like a delegation and I raised my glass to them.

'We've been having a chat about this morning's pyrotechnic incident,' Roach said.

'And his magic act,' Minos glared at Casino.

There had been a row. Lola looked like she wanted to throw a tantrum of hitherto uncharted intensity, Minos was seething about something and Casino had got one of his stroppy faces on. Only Roach looked calm and untroubled.

'Yes, we've had a chat about everything and I also had a confession to make,' Roach said.

'He's very clever,' Minos said.

'Very, very clever,' Casino said. 'He knows lots of things.'

'Mostly because I've read them in books,' Roach said. 'But I seem to have no problem remembering them. Would you like an example?'

'Not right now,' I said. 'I'm up to here with party tricks.'

He looked hurt and I would have apologised but the rum wouldn't let me.

'Can't you do anything?' Lola said, giving me an unpleasant look I didn't feel I deserved.

'No,' I refilled my glass.

She looked at me and then grunted. There was something funny going on with her but I couldn't work out what it was. That wasn't unusual, she could be very enigmatic when she wanted to be.

'The question is,' Roach said. 'Where did these new abilities come from? Who gave them to us?'

'That's two questions. I have another. Why the hell would anyone give him,' I pointed at Minos. 'The power to set things on fire? It's a wonder the whole hotel hasn't gone up in flames.'

'I'm trying to come to terms with that myself,' he coughed. It smelt of smoke.

Why couldn't I do anything? That was the real question I wanted to ask. It wasn't fair. I would have been excellent at being able to do something. I'd waited and waited for something to happen, I even spent my time trying to kick start all manner of things, just to change things. All the ducking and diving, the petty theft and grand larceny was all just to make something happen when you got down to it. All my life, waiting. Now something was happening and it was all happening to other people. Lola looked like she was torn between two conflicting feelings, like she didn't know whether to hug me or hit me. 'What about you?' I said to her. 'What can you do?'

'Nothing.'

'Nothing?' Roach said.

'No. Nothing at all,' she said.

'You haven't noticed anything?' I said.

Have you?' Lola glared at me. There was all together to much glaring going on.

'No. Nothing.' I said.

'Maybe it's a male thing?' Lola said.

'It seems unlikely,' Roach said. 'Maybe you just haven't noticed them yet?'

'Or you're lying,' Casino was leaning against the side of the pool. He was addressing Lola.

'I'm not lying,' she said. 'Why don't you ask her if she's lying?'

All three of them sniggered.

'Sorcha is a terrible liar,' Roach said. 'Be reasonable, Lola.'

'I am not a terrible liar,' I said.

'You haven't noticed anything?' Roach said.

'No, that's what they wanted to know,' I said.

'Who?' Casino said.

'The people in the shop,' I said.

'Haggia and Marshall Dailly?' Lola asked.

'How did you know that?' Minos span round to face her. He was like a ginger tornado.

'What?'

'Their names. I never told you their names,' he said.

Casino, Roach and I looked from Minos to Lola and back again.

'This is ridiculous.' It was Lola's turn to storm off. She marched across the pool and clambered, with as much dignity as she could muster, up the ladder in the shallow end. I raised my glass, empty again, to her in farewell. My storming off had been better, but she coped with the ladder well.

'You told me their names, but I never mentioned it to these guys,' Minos said to me, waiting until Lola had slammed the doors. 'So how does she know that?'

We all looked at Roach.

'What?' he said.

'Are you not the intellectual giant now? Can't you work it out?' Casino said.

Roach thought for a moment. It was almost beautiful to watch. 'I think the most likely answer is that she does have a new ability and that allowed her to find out the names. But she doesn't like it, or she's ashamed of it. Or perhaps she thinks we won't like it and will ostracise her from the group. It's provoked fear, whatever it is.'

'Wow,' Minos said. 'You are smart.'

'I said I thought that bump on the head had made me cleverer,' he said, half in wonder.

'I wonder how clever you are,' I said.

'Let's go to Michelangelo's and find out,' Casino said.

'Yes, let's,' I said. 'This is getting us nowhere.' Besides I was already drunk and a little more drunkenness wouldn't do me any harm.

Michelangelo's. Bar of ill repute, stale beer and genius quiz machine. No one, legend had it, had ever got more than four consecutive questions right on it. Michelangelo said the spirit of his ex-wife was trapped in it. We pointed out that she wasn't dead but he said that just went to show how evil she was.

I volunteered to go and liberate Lola from the sulks. Her set of rooms was on the fourth floor. She was lying in her wardrobe, that is to say that she was in a room that was full of clothes, laying on a pile of vintage fabric almost a metre high. She was waiting for Casino to finish some designs for her. I knocked on the open door.

'Please come to Michelangelo's with us,' I said.

'No.'

'Please.'

'Why?'

'Because I want you to.'

'That's all?'

'Yes. What other reason?'

She sat up and looked at me. It was a funny look. Like she was trying to work out what was going to happen at the end of a book by looking at the cover. I loved those old books and their covers, the rum had cheered me up no end. I loved rum too.

'Because I love you?' I said.

'OK, there's no need to get cute,' she said. 'Let's see how smart the big lug is.'

How did she know that? I decided not to ask. It was only the afternoon and there was plenty of day left to get worse. Besides if Roach was right and she was bothered and bewildered, it wasn't for me to make it worse for her. I figured that when she was ready she would tell me and then we'd sort it out, all of us together, because that was what always happened. She slipped her hand into mine as we walked down the sweeping staircase, beneath the dusty chandeliers with their broken bulbs. Sometimes she felt very small.

I was grateful that Michelangelo's was in the opposite direction to Haggia's shop and the further we walked from it the stronger my resolve to forget all about it became. It was still not an iron clad resolution but the support of a few more alcoholic beverages would prove a magnificent bolster, of this I was sure. Tixylix drove past us, slowing down to make sure we'd seen him. I didn't know what his issue was, maybe it was Lola. He seemed like a small problem though, the easy to ignore kind. I wondered where Vermina was, then decided I shouldn't wonder. We were getting a fair bit of attention due to the large box of rum that Roach was carrying on his shoulder. I couldn't even lift it but Roach was strolling along like he was carrying a kitten.

He put the crate on the bar in front of Michelangelo.

'What's this?' the landlord asked.

'Rum,' I said.

'From where?'

'From the land of rum,' I said as Minos opened the box and pulled out a bottle.

'Wow,' said Michelangelo once he'd knocked back a sample. 'Quality.'

'Indeed,' I said. 'This is the deal. You let us drink that bottle, and let's say these two, for free and you can buy the remainder for a very reasonable price.'

It was a great deal, for everyone. Minos had got so much rum off a ship that had been salvaged from somewhere in the Strait, it had taken three days to bring it all back to the hotel in a truck we'd borrowed from Emirhan. Minos's crew were very democratic and took turns at taking whatever they found, if they couldn't handle what came in or didn't want it, the next pirate in line got it. Minos could use anything so his take was way above everyone else's. They didn't mind though, we shared the spoils around like the liberal egalitarians we were.

Michelangelo agreed right away. Roach had his rum on the rocks, Minos had a triple straight with a rum chaser, Lola and Casino had daiquiris and I had a mojito, again. The bar was a long dark room with a tiny counter at one end and three machines at the other end by the door. There was a music tablet which had thousands and thousands of songs on it, all from the DarkNet. There were so many songs that everyone just played the top twenty so they didn't have to stand there all night choosing music and forgetting to drink. It was an eclectic selection. There was a machine that would beat you at poker and take all your credit and the quiz machine that was possessed by the undead ex-wife. There were a couple of booths and a few small tables. It wasn't fancy but people didn't go there for the ambience. Most people who went there wouldn't remember having been there come the morning after, so Michelangelo felt it didn't matter what it looked like. Casino got Roach a barstool while I searched my wristset for the cheat code that would give us unlimited play for one token. Roach struck a meditative pose and rolled his head around on his neck. It made a crackling sound. The machine woke up when I fed it a token, then I told it the code. Roach took the hot seat and we gathered round. I wished everything was all right in the world but it wasn't. Everyone kept glancing at each other, except for Roach who was concentrating on the screen before him, trying not to catch anyone's eye but determined not to miss anything anyone might do. We might have pretended that we were focused on the battle between Roach and the forces of Michelangelo's ex-wife but we all knew, I think, that something was wrong.

'How many's that?' Casino said some time later. Maybe an hour. Maybe less. Maybe more. Time had become very elastic somehow, all stretchy and twangy.

'Seventeen,' Minos said.

'Eighteen,' Roach said, cracking his knuckles.

Question nineteen was something about ancient Greece. There was no Greece anymore, so it was all ancient, but this was really ancient, like before clothes ancient. Casino would have been most suited to it. Roach pondered for a moment.

'I think it's C,' he said.

'Yeah, me too,' the rum said with my mouth. 'Definitely C.'

He pushed the button. The machine made a mournful noise and the screen dissolved into pixels like tears.

We stared.

'Genius or not then?' Casino said.

'Nineteen is pretty genius,' Minos said.

'Pretty genius,' Lola had cheered up, because of the restorative power of the daiquiris. Michelangelo had run out of synthetic fruit so she was having rum daiquiris. Lola was swaying in time to the music, I think. The bar might have been swaying in time to the music. The more I drank the harder it was to tell what was swaying. I'd spent the last ten minutes finding the word julep hilarious having overheard a woman order a mint julep. Roach had told me what one was twice but the information kept sliding out of my head.

'I'm not sure,' Roach said.

'Don't be sad,' I patted him on the arm.

'I guess it's futile to pit your wits against a machine, such is the element of luck involved,' he said.

'Why don't you have another go?' I said. 'More drinks?'

I was full of great ideas. Bursting with them. I negotiated my way to the bar, which seemed to be uphill and yet downhill at the same time. 'Hello,' I said to Michelangelo.

'Hello, you,' he said to me, which made me giggle. You and me.

'Hello, I would like some drinks.'

'Yes?'

'Yes. Rum all round,' I wafted my hand towards the others in an instructive fashion.

I'd been drunk in my time. Many times I'd been drunk in my time. And what times they were. The drunken times. But this time I was drunk. Very drunk indeed. And it had only just gotten dark. Become dark. Gone dark. Whatever. I think it was fair to say that I had surpassed myself.

'That's it, get it all up,' Minos held back my fringe, the only part of my hair long enough to get sick on it. 'Better out than in.'

I could see people's feet as they circumnavigated the puddle of vomit I was gifting to the pavement.

'But I haven't eaten any carrots,' I said.

'There, there. You're just making some room for more, that's all. You know what you're like.'

'I'm finished,' I wiped my chin on my t-shirt. 'All better.'

Minos grimaced. 'You go in.'

I sauntered back into the bar in a very, very straight line. Some of the bar was spinning, which was an unusual feature. A moment later Minos joined me. I turned back to see him close the door on a suspicious glow. That fire bug. The others had decamped to a booth where Casino was still firing questions at Roach who hadn't got one wrong in an hour. I was pleased to see my glass was full again as being sick always made me thirsty and gave me a horrible taste in my mouth a bit like vomit.

'I'm bored of this now,' Lola said. 'I declare you a genius, Roach.'

We cheered and toasted him. He smiled. We lapsed into silence. It was uncomfortable again. It wasn't as if we talked all the time, but we used to be able to sit in a peaceable quiet. Not anymore. It was sad. I felt tearful and found I couldn't sit still.

'Excuse me,' said a voice.

We all looked around.

'Excuse me,' it said again.

I studied my drink. It didn't have a face so I figured it couldn't have been that talking. Unless it was ventriloquist rum and then it could have been talking without moving its mouth. Except I knew it couldn't have a mouth of any kind because it didn't have a face. I wasn't that drunk.

'Yes?' Casino said.

'It'd like to get out if that's OK,' it was a male voice.

'Have you got an invisible friend as well?' I asked Casino.

'No, have I?' He looked a little bit concerned by that idea.

'I'm not invisible,' said the voice as its owner crawled out from under the table. 'And I ain't his friend.'

'Not yet,' Lola said. 'A stranger is just a friend you haven't made yet.'

'And they don't come much stranger,' the man said.

That's what he was. He was a man. Well, he was more of a bundle of dirty rags with a man inside them. He was old and like many old people he had too much skin. Maybe some of the rags were skin. It was very hard to tell. He might have been two men. Twins. It didn't matter which eye I shut it was still just as hard to tell.

'I'm Casino, how do you do?' Casino held out his hand.

'What kind of a name is that?' said the ragged man.

'What's your name then?' Casino said.

'Prophet,' said the man.

'That's not a name, it's a vocation,' I said, feeling very pleased with myself indeed.

'It's more of a calling,' Prophet said.

We went round the table exchanging names.

'Are you local?' Lola said. She was good at small talk. It was a legacy of her upbringing. The wealthy only engaged in the smallest of talk. Tiny, tiny talk.

'No,' said Prophet.

'Where are you from then?' Lola said.

'He's from under the table,' I said.

'Nowhere,' Prophet said.

'Nowhere?' Roach said.

'Nope.'

'We aren't from anywhere either, are we?' Casino said.

'No. We aren't from anywhere,' I said. I had a desperate urge to be at home, in bed. I wasn't in the mood to be sociable to strange old men. I got up to leave and call time on the madness. I was already a camel carrying too many straws. Prophet was not moving to let me get past him. I started to climb over him, issuing forth farewells to everyone in the bar.

'You aren't going anywhere,' Prophet said from beneath me. 'We're all going to have a drink or two and then you're going to offer me a bed for the night.'

'Is that right?' I said with the most sceptical eyebrows I could manage under the circumstances.

'Absolutely,' he said.

I woke the next morning to the sound of Prophet snoring from his sleeping bag. He had set up camp in the room across the corridor from mine. He had been absolutely right.

# Chapter Five

I checked that everything was in order then pulled the drive from my tablet, the update was perfect. As it should have been given the amount of care and attention I'd lavished on it. I was expected to deliver it to Massey's House of Mirth by lunchtime and I was right on schedule.

I left Prophet's snores reverberating around the hotel as I wheeled my bike through the revolving door, drive stashed in my battered bag. Massey's House of Mirth was an illegal gaming house, as opposed to a joke shop, down in an old underground station right on the intersection of the NW and N Sector boundary lines. This meant that Enforce coverage was patchy and confused, falling as it did been station coverage zones, leaving Massey and his charges to cast themselves off into fantastical worlds to their hearts' content. We tried to find a place to live that benefited from boundary blindness, as it was called, but they'd all been burnt out as a precaution. Every time someone tried to rebuild one of the buildings along a sector line, so it could be squatted, someone came along and set fire to it again. In the end people gave up.

'Hello, Sorcha,' Massey said. 'Nice to see you.'

I liked Massey. He had a nice relaxed way about him and smelled very clean, like soap or washing powder. He never got high on his own supply either, so he relied on customer feedback to know what people wanted from his games. It was that receptiveness to his customers that made his the most popular gaming house outside the official, more expensive outfits in the Administration sector. The other illegal houses tended to be playthings for their owners. One of them liked gangster shoot outs so that's all she held, another was into aliens and intergalactic sex, but Massey ran four different games which rotated according to what people seemed to want. He was also not the most competent technician so he'd adopted me and Minos as his experts, and quite a lucrative contract it turned out to be. I gave him the drive and he turned it over in his fingers with great wonderment, as though I handed him a miracle.

'Step into my office,' he said, once a kid had appeared to replace him.

The minion was a hardcore gamer. He was pallid and his eyes flitted around the room, bewildered by all the peripheral vision he had in real life. Although describe this as real life to him and he was liable to get into a heated debate about what was real and what was life anyway. I followed Massey down a stalled escalator into the guts of the station. There were four platforms fitted out with the different games. We turned and turned down a spiral staircase heading towards the only platform with a train in it. This train was Massey's office. I'd managed to get over the novelty of sitting in it pretending it was hurtling through the tunnels, although from what I'd heard they never got faster than a crawl when they'd been running.

Massey stood helpless by his server, looking around for some suitable socket to stick the drive in.

'May I?' I pulled my tablet out of my bag and hooked it up thus saving almost two hundred people from certain brain trauma.

'Shall I get you a drink?' said Massey.

'Yeah and get one for yourself,' I said handing him a bottle. 'A gift from Minos. He's sorry he missed your birthday.'

'Where did you get this from?'

'That's classified, I'm afraid.'

'I do love you guys,' he said.

While Massey crashed about looking for glasses I uploaded the patch to his system. It was a new development in one of the games, it allowed for bigger weapons and faster vehicles. There was also a red head who would appear at random and grant a special upgrade to certain players. Massey liked these random elements because they didn't happen in the legal games. They were all under strict administrative control but Massey's games were famous for being expansive and responsive. One gamer Massey really liked found himself in the game one day. After that story got out Massey found himself with a two year waiting list and people prepared to pay four or five times more than the going rate for an hour in his House. He didn't often ask me to put a customer in a game for him but when he did I always tried to get them just right for him.

'Right, pay attention,' I said. 'You need to update at midnight and the patch will automatically assimilate itself into the game. If anyone reports any issues tomorrow, message me and one of us will come and fix them.'

'OK,' said Massey. 'Midnight. Message. Got it.'

I looked out of the carriage window. On the platform was a row of three tier bunk beds. Each of them was occupied by someone wearing a full body suit and goggles. It was like some emergency had been called up above, maybe an air raid or a chemical weapons scare, and people had moved down here waiting for the danger to subside. Every so often, a hand would rise up and make a strange gesture but on the whole people could have been dead. It was creepy. I wasn't a fan of the games myself, Casino and Roach had played at Massey's once or twice but they weren't regular players. Minos hated them with a venomous passion and playing wasn't worth the lecture.

'We'll have a new job for you soon,' said Massey. 'It's a knock off of one of the official games. Some quest mission title. I'm just waiting for my contact to snag a copy.'

'Really? It's not like you to follow the in-crowd.' That meant a big job, with a big pay-off.

'I know but we want to make it the opposite. Very subversive and rebellious. It's an intuitive development program, except we want to make a few adjustments. And make it a bit less individualistic. I was talking to a man in a bar about it. Some rich guy from out near the Western Disaster Zone. Odd man. Seemed to know me though.'

There was another problem with the official gaming houses, they were watched. You could find yourself blowing up aliens or New Canadians, whoever the bad guy in fashion was, and if you got a very high score or left a particular pattern of activity in the game you could find yourself dressed in a suit being interviewed for a covert role at Enforce HQ. Although no one ever knew anyone who this had happened to, there were some very good gamers, legends, who just vanished and their accounts were deleted. Work and Labour gamers too, not underclass riff raff or Massey's clientele.

'In the official game you score for making sensible, logical decisions, in ours you have to follow your heart. If you do the right, the expected or the reasonable thing you lose. You'd be brilliant at it,' Massey said.

'I'm sensible and logical,' I said.

Massey howled with laughter, he never could hold his drink.

'I am,' I said.

'Once your head and your heart start arguing there's only ever going to be one winner and it ain't this,' Massey knocked on my head like he wanted to be let in.

I tried to look menacing.

Massey grinned, 'This rum's good.'

I showed my glass to him. It was all sad and empty.

The ride home was a bit wobbly, but by the time I got there I was feeling fine and dandy, I'd also remembered to organise the transfer of our fee which was some going given how drunk Massey had managed to get. I left him in the care of his vampiric minion. It was already late and dark and Roach had left me a note to tell me he was working the night shift, as was Minos. Even his handwriting had improved. The note also informed me that everyone would be out, he didn't know where Lola and Casino were, and that Prophet had slept all day and none of them had been brave enough to wake him up. I decided I would join the cast of cowards and leave him be. Minos had been involved in the writing of the note, there was a sooty fingerprint at the bottom of the page. I couldn't remember getting home the night before, never mind what mood everyone was in but I figured that the note indicated that I was cool with Roach and Minos, even if Lola and Casino might be sulking.

There was nothing to watch on the television. We picked up pretty much all the channels in the world but more interest could be found scrolling through the listings sniggering at the titles than watching any of the actual programmes. No one really made anything new apart from the interactives where you could change the plot as you went along. I preferred the old films. Minos had found a container full of them and we'd fixed up an old machine to play them on. I wasn't in the mood for that though, I didn't know what mood I was in. I shouldn't drink in the day. I made some dinner and I watched the news with the sound down until I felt both sleepy and sober. Prophet was still snoring as I turned the light out. I assessed volume levels and then put the light on and rummaged around in a drawer for my ear plugs.

It was still dark when I woke up. My ear plugs had escaped my ears. The snoring had stopped and the only sound was the occasional car as it rumbled past. Enforce, most likely. The street lights were out so I guess it was after midnight but before five.

'Sorcha Blades,' said Prophet from the doorway.

I growled to see if he would go away.

'I must tell you something.' He was not going away.

I growled again.

'Are you asleep?'

'Not anymore,' I sat up.

'Listen,' he sort of wafted across the room, like a ghost.

I put the light on. He looked asleep. I was almost disappointed that his arms weren't outstretched in the customary pose, but as his sat on the edge of my bed there was no question that he wasn't in the same state of consciousness as I was.

'The three are close to the end,' he said. 'The project is almost complete.'

'What three?'

'The three are close to the end,' he said. 'The project is almost complete.'

'What project?' I said.

Nothing. He had nothing to more to say.

'Prophet?' I poked him.

He began to snore. I poked him again, for fun if I'm honest, then to my very intense and precise horror he sagged in the middle, slumped onto the mattress and helped himself to half of my bed and all of my duvet.

I beat a hasty retreat to the streets. It turned out to be two thirty in the morning. It was dark in the NW Sector and the sky was full of stars. I stood for a few minutes trying to see a shooting star but there weren't any. They said that before the flood you couldn't see the stars, it wasn't dark enough. Whenever I thought of that I felt that maybe, just maybe, something was better and I hadn't missed out on everything good. The only cars were Enforce and the occasional tro-tro ferrying my fellow workers from somewhere or another. Biker sects cruised the main roads on their motorbikes shouting to each other, their words whipped away from me by the wind. I rode the whole way above ground and on the ground, no tunnels and no rooftops, I went the long way round. I rode into the atrophied heart of the city taking the quiet narrow roads towards the parks where most of the houses were boarded and squatted. A couple of people waved to me, yelling my name as I flew past but I didn't stop to recognise them. Everything was carrying on as normal. I headed out to the docks, to see Minos. I focused on my wheels spinning as they carried me over the tarmac like a meditation. They seemed to go faster, skimming above the surface like it was water, no, like I was water. I felt like I was pouring into the warm wind as the streets slipped behind me.

Unlike the neighbouring streets, the docks were a hive of activity at that time in the morning. There were various reprobates hanging around, waiting for buyers or sellers.

'All right?' said Chunk, one of Minos's esteemed crew. He was wearing a wet suit. He was well named so it was not a pretty sight.

'Yeah, you?'

'Boat's sunk off the Project. They say it was torpedoed. I'm going out with the salvage crew. It's going to be so awesome.'

'That's nice.'

'Yeah,' he flapped around in his flippers. 'Which one are you after? Roach or Minos?'

'Minos,' I said.

'He's down there.' He pointed to the right, down a long slope that curved out of sight, then waddled off.

'Good luck,' I shouted after him. He seemed so excited.

I don't remember a time when I didn't know Minos. He'd always been there, even though at times I hadn't wanted him to be and he hadn't wanted me to be. Most of those times coincided so we were still there for each other, yinging and yanging. There was no record of my having any parents because they were all washed away, both the parents and the records. I was found floating in the upturned lid of an incubator, believed to be the only newborn to survive the hospital's flooding. I looked for my parents, a while back, I became kind of obsessed with where I'd come from and who I was. It took a few months before I got bored of looking and decided that there wasn't any answer to that question better than the one I'd find riding my bike too fast between oncoming traffic. Like all small babies without guardians I ended up in a children's home that had been established in one of the hospitals in the N Sector. But I guess it wasn't called that then, that came later. Minos had the bed next to mine until we were eight and then he got sent to the boys' room over the hallway. He rebuilt his first short wave receiver from salvaged scraps so we could talk in the middle of the night. I'd never told him I thought that he was kind of a genius because he'd be kind of unbearable. The bottom fell out of the adoption market after the flood so we were stuck there. When we were old enough, to stop us from going too feral, we were educated through the vocational training programme. I started to learn some basic computer programming and Minos did reclamation engineering. Back then little courses would pop up to provide the solution to whatever problem seemed to be most pertinent that week. Knee-jerk knowledge. Textiles washing up on the west coast? Teach us sewing and tailoring. Loads of bombs and protests? Teach us first aid skills and citizenship. When the first of the freight containers from capsized or abandoned ships drifted up the river reclamation engineering was invented. When some bright spark in the Ministry of Administration decided that computer systems that barely worked needed security systems they taught those of us with an aptitude how to code. And if that sounds like child labour it's because that's what it was. On the positive side it meant we could turn our hands to anything. We were born survivors anyway. There followed a few years of my mouth getting me into fights and Minos's big brother routine getting me out of them, then I finished the bicycle I was building in the mechanics class which was a condition of my leaving education early. The education authorities and I were in total agreement, they would be better off if I wasn't under their feet all day. I was too young but they made an exception as they said I was exceptional. I don't think they meant it in a good way. Minos, being older than me, was due to leave anyway. We'd been selling small communications devices and credit hacks for a couple of years, dealing our talents for cigarettes and spirits. It didn't take much imagination to work out how suitable a life of crime would be for us. Not that there was much of a choice, the Work and Labour posts were given to the plastic baby dolls in the paid-for education system. The flood babies, I think that's what we were called, didn't have that kind of credit. There was never any question of me and Minos going our separate ways once we'd escaped institutional life. We didn't have separate ways. We had each other.

I wheeled my bike down the ramp, went to the very end of the tunnel and turned the dark corner. I could see a large shadow on the wall, the black cast against the bright flickering light from flames. It was a man on fire. Minos was a bundle of flames at the far end of the storage bay. I didn't know how he was casting a shadow because all I could see was fire. I am sure that if my brain had been able to process what I could see it would have been horrified. I'm not big on tears but I felt them then. It was like one second I knew him, remembered him, then in a moment he'd gone, I'd lost him. He was somebody else. He was somewhere I couldn't go. I turned to get away, my wheels caught on some rubbish and sent a can clattering across the ground.

'Sorcha!'

I turned and there he was, back to normal.

'Your clothes,' I said. 'They're not burnt.'

'I've sprayed them with some flame retardant stuff I found in a submarine,' he said. 'Makes them a bit stiff but I don't have Casino's physique so I'm staying clothed.'

'What are you doing?'

'I'm practising.'

'Do they know?' I gestured up the slope.

'No, they think I'm burning evidence. Which I am.'

I nodded.

'Are you all right?' he said. 'I didn't know you were coming.'

I shrugged to dilute my frown. I'd never needed an invitation before.

'Let's have a cup of tea and watch the boats go out,' Minos said, guiding me towards a small metal door. 'There's been some kind of incident off the Project.'

The door opened onto a narrow concrete shelf on the underside of the pier. I could see the shapes of roosting gulls on the roof to my right. They were huge and vicious, in the spring Minos and his crew had to wear big plastic hats to stop the gulls attacking them. A man called Clane made a pretty good living shooting them and selling them up at the OP as a delicacy. I'd seen what the gulls ate so it wasn't a delicacy I would partake of. We sat side by side, leaning against the wall. Every so often the edge of a fin or a tail would disturb the surface of the water a few metres below us. Minos produced a flask from his backpack and a packet of cigarettes.

'I've started smoking again,' he said. 'I thought it fitted the new image.'

He put the cigarette in his mouth and inhaled. The cigarette lit itself.

'That's very bad for you,' I said.

The cigarette went out. Minos frowned and lit by blowing on it.

'Maybe it isn't, maybe I'm immune now,' he said. 'What's up?'

I told him about Prophet while he poured tea. He somehow managed to knock his cup into the water while he was attempting to get some tea into mine and I almost cheered with relief that he was still my Minos.

'The three are close to the end, the project is almost complete,' he said. 'You're sure that's what he said?'

'Yes. He said it twice. And then he went back to snoring. In my bed.'

'What's the three?'

'He didn't have anything else to say.'

'Well, we'll have to find out,' Minos said. 'Won't we?'

'Yes. Otherwise it'll just be annoying.'

We finished our tea in thoughtful silence. It wasn't uncomfortable, you could almost hear us both thinking. We were making our way back when he turned to me.

'I don't understand what's happening,' he said, and then carried on walking with his face hidden by the shadows. I hoped he didn't want any answers because I couldn't think of a single one.

Minos got a tro-tro back to the hotel, so he was lucky he made it home at all. A tro-tro was a very small bus that carried people along specified routes through the city. They sounded like a great idea except they didn't follow the specified routes and although you could only fit about seven people and the driver in, you could find yourself the eighteenth passenger and hanging off the roof rack. They were only used by the underclass, as we were called. The tro-tro Minos caught was driven by Starboy, a very old friend who we'd gotten a carriage licence for, and a driving licence, and I think also the tro-tro but it looked like a different one when he pulled up and almost ran over my foot. I beat them back to the hotel by a good ten minutes, even though a gang of seven or eight foxes attempted to hijack me on the way. They chased me for a couple of miles and just when I thought I'd lost them they dashed out of an alley way in a failed suicide mission, somehow slipping between my wheels as I rode through them. I made sure Starboy saw that I'd won by sitting outside the hotel on my bike and waving when he pulled up. He was very good humoured about it even though due to his hasty driving one of his passengers had thrown up on another.

Minos and I let ourselves in and got straight to work. We were hooked up to every database, every feed, every point of information available. We had access to government, military and Enforce records. Not that there was much point of military records anymore. The world's armies were still in disarray after a small nuclear device had gone off in the Central Eastern region a few years ago. They went into free fall and no government seemed willing to step in and make a decision about anything so they were still falling. Some lived in Mole Town and some had hijacked a large freighter off the east coast and had set up another alternative community there. They bought their women from the poorest region of New Europa, so it was easy to guess what their version of alternative was. If there was anything more boring than watching someone search a million databases I couldn't think what I was, and I got to think very hard about that for two or three hours. The sun was coming up when at last Minos shook his head.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Not one single thing. Not the three, not a likely project. There are lots of projects, they are all owned by someone though and not the three of anything.'

'Maybe, and I realise I'm going out on a limb here, maybe the weird old man upstairs is just that. A weird old man.'

'Maybe it's covert ops. In which case someone at work might know. I should have thought of that before we charged off. Sorry,' Minos said.

'I think Prophet is probably just some crazy old homeless guy and because of...everything I just got carried away. I'm sorry.'

'I am not crazy,' Prophet stood in the doorway.

'Then you may wish to put some clothes on,' I said. 'What is it with people and clothes in this house?'

Minos gave a low whistle. 'Baggy,' was all he could manage.

Prophet found us in the kitchen, where we had decided to hide from him, ten minutes later. He was all bundled up again. We were eating breakfast listening to the activity on the closed Enforce channels. A cargo train had derailed on the edge of the N Sector and nothing was coming in or out of the city. There were only two lines in use and the other one could only carry light rail. It was causing a pleasing amount of chaos and people were rioting in the seventh district of the N Sector. They loved a riot up there, just for kicks and giggles they once rioted when someone dropped a hat. The rolling news tickers on the television were as hilarious as we'd hoped they would be.

'I am not crazy,' Prophet said.

'OK,' I said. 'I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.'

'I woke up in someone's bed,' Prophet said. 'I hope I have been taken advantage of.'

'Right, that's it.' I said. I called Roach on the intercom.

He appeared in the kitchen moments later, looking huge and determined despite the fact that he was wearing his spotted pyjamas.

'I'm sorry to hear that you'll be moving on,' he said to Prophet. 'It's been really nice to meet you but I guess if you have to go, you have to go.

He put his arm round Prophet and manoeuvred him towards the door with great expertise. Prophet protested, of course, but Roach was implacable. I watched Prophet on one of the security monitors as he lingered on the path outside the main entrance, still trying to convince Roach that he had something vital to say. He looked up and down the street a couple of times, had a whole conversation with someone who wasn't there and then wandered away. There was nothing happening on any of the other monitors. We had the whole perimeter under surveillance. The bank of screens was imposing but, as is often the case with surveillance, it was quite dull. Minos said that was good but sometimes I wanted something to happen so much that I'd even lay out a welcome mat for some serious trouble if it appeared. I went to retrieve my wristset from my room and considered asking Minos to burn my sheets for me. When I got back Minos and Roach were talking about our investigations over cereal and tea. Minos was wondering about putting a shout out across the DarkNet. Other than noting the number of freaks that would attract, a very good point, Roach had no helpful suggestions to make.

'I propose that for the moment we keep this to ourselves,' Roach said. 'Just between the three of us.'

'OK,' Minos said.

I wasn't so sure. We just didn't keep things to ourselves like that. Personal stuff, yes. It was your own concern who you brought home and what for, the rules were that we asked no questions unless there was an issue. We didn't have secrets, we had lives. But when it was business we were a team, and this was business so this agreement to keep something from the other two was a new departure and not one I cared for.

'Where's Casino?' Roach changed the subject, seeing my face.

'I haven't seen him,' Minos said, then sighed. 'You know what I mean.'

'Maybe Lola knows,' Roach said, gesturing with his spoon through the door to where he could see Lola approaching.

She had a set of enormous headphones on, ridiculous when attached to her tiny player. I could hear the music she was listening to as if the headphones were over my own ears.

'Have you gone deaf?' Minos shouted.

'No, I'm listening to music.'

'We can hear it,' he shouted.

Lola selected a cleanish bowl from the industrial-sized dishwasher and helped herself to some cereal. 'Is there coffee?'

I reached over and turned off the player clipped to her jacket.

'Don't do that,' she said.

'I can't hear myself think,' I said.

'That's the idea,' she switched it back on.

'I'll make some coffee,' Minos said. He tended to avoid Lola when she was in what he called a difficult frame of mind. And she was in just such a frame of mind.

I switched it off again, 'Lola, leave it.'

'Why?' she switched it on and sat down at the table.

'Because it's annoying.'

'You think this is annoying?' she said.

'Yes,' I said.

'Do you?' she turned to Roach as she switched it on.

'Well,' he said. 'It is a bit. But more than that, Lola. It's odd.'

'What?' she shouted over an enthusiastic bout of drumming.

I switched it off.

'It's odd,' he said.

'Odd?' Lola was using her dangerous voice. This meant a severe loss of temper was imminent. Minos was lingering over the coffee.

'Yes. Odd.' Roach said. 'It's like you're shutting yourself off from everything.'

'I am?' Lola said.

'Yes.'

'And what about you lot?' she pulled the headphones off her head and flung them on the table. 'You're shutting yourselves off.'

'We aren't,' Minos said.

We were, I thought.

'See. You are,' Lola's temper was now missing in action.

'Lola,' I said.

'No,' she said. 'You can't keep things from me.'

The three of us looked at each other under Lola's watchful gaze. Then she snatched up her headphones again and turned on the player, her hands were shaking with rage.

'OK, we'll tell you,' I gave in first, as usual. 'Turn off the music.'

She put the headphones back on the table and the music stopped.

'It's just something that Prophet said, that's all,' I said. 'It's not important.'

'It is,' she said under her breath.

'What? It is?' Roach said.

'Yes.'

'Why?' I said.

'I don't know,' Lola pushed her breakfast away. 'He knows it's important but he doesn't know why. Someone told him it was.'

'Why, what did he say?' I didn't know they'd talked.

'He didn't say anything,' she said.

'Someone told him it was important?' Minos put the coffee in front of her.

'Yes,' she said. 'He doesn't think that it matters though, that he doesn't know the why.

I knew then what was going on.

'He doesn't think?' I said.

She looked me in the eye. She knew that I knew. 'Yes, he thinks, in his head.'

'In his head?' Minos said. 'I don't understand...'

'What you mean. How can you see inside his head?' Lola finished his sentence for him.

Minos clamped his hands over his mouth and then over his forehead.

Roach put the headphones back on her head and switched the music back on.

'She can read minds,' Roach said.

'Is she doing it now?' Minos said.

'Yes. And also don't be so rude,' Lola said.

'How near do you have to be to me?' he said.

'In the next room,' Lola switched the music off. 'Who am I kidding? This doesn't work.'

'I'll be in the room next to the one next to this one if you need me,' Minos got up and almost ran out of the kitchen.

'Can you read all of my mind?' Roach said.

'No,' Lola said. 'Only the bit you're actually thinking. The live part. Does that make sense?'

'No sense at all,' I said.

'You worked it out yesterday,' she told me. 'But you thought it was the rum talking.'

'I'm going to have to stop drinking,' I said.

'Does she mean that?' Roach asked Lola.

'She always does,' Lola wound the cable around the headphones. 'This is going to freak everyone out, isn't it?

'No, I'm not in the least...' Roach trailed off.

'I can tell when you lying, you know,' Lola looked at me. 'You're not freaked out?'

I shrugged. I don't know what I'm thinking half the time so I didn't see why anyone else would.

Lola smiled, reading the thought. 'You really don't know what you can do?'

'Do you?'

'Not if you don't,' she said.

We sat there drinking cold tea and warm coffee for a few minutes.

'What do we do?' Lola said.

'No idea,' I said. 'I'm going to see if I can pick up some work.'

'But what about Prophet?' Roach said. 'If it's important.'

'I guess if it's important he'll be back,' I said. 'What about the people at the hospital?'

'That was no hospital,' Roach said.

'I couldn't see what they were thinking,' Lola said. 'Apart from once when someone remembered that they hadn't taken their medication so I would be able to see what they were thinking. But before that they were only thinking about calling their mother.'

'Their mother?' Roach said.

'Yes, she had something wrong with her that I've never heard of.'

I left them discussing the finer points of telepathy, pyromancy, invisibility and being a genius and went to call Packet. Yum was on despatch.

'You want to work?' he said, making it sound as though I'd suggested something obscene.

'Yeah, I need to occupy my mind.'

'Sorry, Blades. I am full today. You can work double hard tomorrow,' he cut the connection.

The day stretched ahead of me like a prison sentence, an ordinary prison sentence for an ordinary person having the ordinary sulks. I got on the bike and rode north west to Stadium City. It was a short ride through Harlestone, or the ghetto. Why it was called the ghetto I didn't know, it was just a political thing. A bogey man for the plastic dolls to fear, to keep them content in their southern offices blocks. Keep chasing the numbers, it said to them, or else you'll end up in the ghetto. The only problem I had with the ghetto was that Enforce would shut down whole blocks making it a slower journey than necessary. There was never any reason to shut anything down, but all those flashing lights looked great on the news as the word ghetto scrolled across the bottom on the blue and red ticker of doom.

I was not troubled by roadblocks that day. I flew along the roads again, I guessed that the two weeks away from the bike had proved that absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, or the muscles stronger. I rounded a long bend, slipping between two freight lorries like the breeze, and Stadium City filled the horizon. After the flood and the crash and all the rest of it, they said people knew they were in trouble because sport stopped. There was no money to pay players or athletes, no money to buy tickets. There was no market for any of it and it curled up and died along with everything else. The city was littered with massive stadiums which stood empty for a few years until enterprising people started to move in. They ripped the seats out and replaced them with makeshift huts. Communities sprang up in no time and a couple of decades later I was riding up to the biggest of them all, Stadium City. The national stadium had never been so popular, the arch was now hung with pod-like structures where people lived, entering down the rope ladder these nests were suspended from. It was a jungle.

We got stiffed in a business deal in Stadium City once, it was so bad it took us a while to recover. It was the only place, other than the black market in the OP, that we wouldn't trade. Stadium City was an anomaly in the city in that it was under the jurisdiction of a single group, the McBrides. Minos had got a load of tobacco off a boat, and we were selling it for a heavy price that would bring a weighty profit. We'd managed to shift a lot of it off to a guy he knew who smuggled such goods over to the northern countries of New Europa. But we still couldn't get rid of the rest, so we put the word out to some unreconstructed types who might be interested in such old school merchandise and the McBrides popped up on our radar. They met Roach, Minos, Casino and I in an abandoned multi-storey car park, tooled up and high, loaded the tobacco into their van and then beat us all up and stole everything we had, including our stolen van. There were rules and this wasn't the behaviour they encouraged. Minos had dropped his wristset in the back of the van and activated its terminal security features. That is to say he blew it up and the McBrides fled the burning van just in time to watch the tobacco smoke itself from a safe distance. Now we let them mind their own business in case the sight of us caused any memories to float to the surface along with thoughts of revenge.

I left the bike somewhere safe. I had activated some of the more devious security measures so anyone attempting to steal it would be in for a terrible shock. As I walked away from it I saw a familiar model of car disappearing down to one of the underground levels. It didn't matter, it would be impossible to follow me where I was going. I did almost send Minos a message to let him know that I'd seen them, but then he'd call me and talk to me and I just wanted to be left alone. I walked up to the very top level, through the bustle of crowded markets and streets making my way to one of the old maintenance staircases. There were people everywhere, all too busy going about their business to notice me. There were all kinds of things going on. Furtive meetings, fights, people just hanging around makeshift cafes drinking bright red tea and smoking black cigarettes. I caught sight of the area where the pitch used to be, deep down in the bowl inside the city. It was a muddle of colour and the noise that rose up into the half closed roof was incredible. The narrow metal staircase I took up to the top wasn't used very often, the door protested when I prised it open.

The whole city spread out before me beneath the clouded sky that sat on the city like a lid. I could see the swollen river and the arrogant towers of the Riverside Sector. The dock where Minos and Roach would soon be busy and industrious, was black and smoky out East not far from the Project, the tall needle puncturing low cloud, its top hidden. To the south I could see the office high rises, the doll factories, and out to the west, in the river I could see the biggest of the disaster zones. Between it all humanity was crammed into every inch. Everything green was behind me or to the very edges almost out of sight. The city was a patchwork quilt of brown, black and grey, everyone huddled beneath its warm folds, hiding like children from the monster in a bedtime story.

I sat on the base of one of the cables that supported the arch, looking into the city. I wasn't the only soul hiding out in the quiet maintenance passages. Just below me, on a narrow balcony running around the inside of the sliding roof, a man was playing cards with himself. It reminded me of where I had sat with Minos the night before, before I found out that Lola was some mindreading freak. Jealousy was not one of my more attractive qualities. I tried to list all the downsides of being able to do something amazing, but the lists just kept morphing into other lists detailing all the exciting things I would do if I was invisible or telepathic. I distracted myself with the man playing patience. I lay on my stomach with my head over the edge so I could watch him, my chin resting on the backs of my fingerless gloves. He'd made a small table out of an upturned crate. The cards were laid out in front him in piles, some fanning down in columns of black then red, black then red. His hands were swollen and covered in homemade tattoos. Badges from a prison boat. It took a lot to get sent to a prison boat and more to get off one. I wondered what he could have done. Murder, I bet. But even then it depended who it was he'd knocked off. Not a political crime, he wouldn't be out now, or ever. Maybe a financial crime, that had a hefty penalty and you had to pay for your own incarceration. An idea not without its own poetry but, like most laws, it meant that the rich could afford to break it and they did. The man's crime remained his secret and he turned three cards over from the pile in his hand, laying them out with great care. We both scanned the columns of cards to see if he could make a move, he couldn't. Three more cards were turned, we both surveyed the cards again. There was red seven that would go on a black eight but my convict friend was turning three more cards. I almost spoke aloud to point out his mistake but just stopped myself in time. Not the most sensible move, pointing out the inadequacies of a prison boat veteran's card playing. Besides, he seemed to have realised his mistake and the seven was on the eight. He must have heard someone coming because he started looking around. It was always fascinating watching people when they didn't know I was doing it, they'd tell me all sorts of things they'd never let slip if they knew they were under observation. I wasn't at the best angle to watch the man but he was confused about something, or maybe suspicious, he kept looking around. I thought maybe he heard something from the stairwell but there was nothing there. The only sound was the city and that was little more than a buzzing in the background. He went back to the cards. Again, revealing the three from his hand with great care. All the cards were lined up across the table in perfect formation. He must have some kind of condition. Maybe that's why he'd done time. He wasn't the brightest, again he'd missed a black three for a red four.

It didn't matter that he hadn't seen it, as he turned the next three cards, the black three moved without his help.

And then a black six moved to the red seven, all on its own.

I yelped. No, not on its own.

The man looked up, he'd heard me. A bright, white scar was vivid against the flushed skin of his cheek.

It was me.

The man backed away from me, afraid. He knocked his table over and tripped over it. And he fell. He fell over the short railing and down into the city below. I jumped down from my ledge and looked over the railing. I could only see a gathering crowd far, far below. The cards flew out across the vast space like a flock of birds.

It was all me. The blinds, the radio, the doors. I wasn't an ordinary person with four extraordinary friends anymore. I was extraordinary too. I felt immense, magnificent. The question foremost in my mind was not what could I do, but what couldn't I do? And in my excitement I forgot that a man had just died.

# Chapter Six

I had the hotel to myself when I got back, I'd never spent so much time home alone, and it made the hotel seem enormous. I made myself some lunch. I sat at the table while, to anyone watching, some food liberated itself from the fridge and made itself into a sandwich. I ate it with a glass of water that poured itself and a dull headache behind my eyes. I believed, burgeoning migraine aside, it was the best sandwich I have ever eaten.

I strode around the hotel, doors opening before me as though I had a troop of invisible servants attending to my every whim. My bike pedalled to meet me. I suppose getting undressed and then dressed again was the most challenging event of the day, it being quite hard to co-ordinate your limbs and inanimate objects. I could only imagine the horrible mess Minos would get himself into. It was quite a distraction, having such a talent, but I kept coming back to the same old question. Each time I made a piece of paper fold itself into a crane I thought why can I do this? And each time I unfolded it to refold it I thought what I am suppose to do now I can?

I went out into the garden and watched the leaves dancing around. I imagined a wind blowing round and round and watched the overgrown bushes and grass bending and swaying. I sat on the high wall by the gate watching a pair of rats skulk in the shadow of a plastic chair that I'd knocked over. The rats were getting bigger, I'd seen cats smaller than these two. A blackbird landed on the path and in an instant one of the rats was on it. I looked away because when it comes down to it I'm quite squeamish. When I looked back the two rats were fighting over the bird's corpse. I jumped off the wall thinking it would frighten them away but they just looked at me and then went back to their argument. The bird was lying with its wings outstretched. One of the wings moved. I took hold of the other one in my mind and moved that too. The rats stop tumbling around each other and looked at the bird. I drew it up to its full height, wings wide. The bird rose above the rats, its innards slipping from a gash they'd left in its stomach, they made a run for it, squealing in distress. Apart from its obvious injuries the bird looked alive, it flapped its wings and moved over to a more secluded spot. There was something beautiful about the slow movement of its wings and the shape of its body. My stomach rolled over itself. I dropped the bird in the long grass and rushed back inside. I felt like I'd done something I shouldn't have, something that I should be ashamed of. I hoped that wasn't anything like what I was supposed to do with this gift. Or whatever I was supposed to call it.

Haggia was arranging tins into a pyramid when I crept into her shop through the back door. Marshall Dailly was there, except he was on a monitor over the counter with the sound turned off, not there himself. He was mouthing words with great enthusiasm and waving his arms around to draw attention to a derailed train that was being picked apart by resourceful citizens.

'Sorcha,' Haggia said in surprise, stepping back and knocking over the pyramid.

I put it all back together for her without moving more than my eyelids, and that was only out of habit.

'Ah,' she said, after a moment. 'So you have that one. That's nice. I like that one.'

'Good, I'm glad,' I said. 'What's going on?'

'How do you mean?' she waddled over to the counter and settled herself on a high stool beside it. Her fat little legs dangling like a child's from a high chair.

'I want to know what's happening. I think that's reasonable.'

'Yes, the thing is... I don't know.'

'But you said you were here to help.'

'I can only tell you what you want to know if it relates to information I may or may not have been given.'

'You sound like a manual.'

'I'm sorry to say there isn't one.'

I knocked all the tins over with my mind just because I could.

Haggia looked confused for a moment, then pulled the unmistakable face of someone trying to focus on thinking about something very difficult and failing. Some help she was.

'Let's try another one,' I said. 'Why can I do this?' I picked all the tins up and put them in a pyramid. I was still leaning against the frame of the back door as though I had not a care in the world.

'I don't know,' she said.

'Why don't you just tell me everything that you do know?' I said. 'It will be much easier in the long run, because I'm going to get really tetchy if I have to come back here every day for your funny answers.'

'I'm not sure I can do that,' she said. 'I don't really know very much.'

I walked toward her in a manner that I hoped was menacing but I suspected wasn't. I should have practised some threatening uses for my telekinesis instead of extreme origami but it was too late for that.

'Good morning,' said a voice I felt unfortunate to recognise.

It was Prophet.

'Good morning,' Haggia said. 'What can I do for you this fine day, esteemed customer?'

Prophet looked a little perturbed and opened his mouth to say something, then closed it.

Haggia billowed towards him like a ship at full sail. 'Welcome, welcome,' she said. 'What brings you to my fine establishment?'

'We've met,' said Prophet. 'Me and her. And she's not so stupid that she hasn't just worked out that you and me know each other, despite what she looks like. So knock it off, woman.'

'She wants to know what's going on,' Haggia said.

'I bet,' Prophet said.

'Well, I don't know what's going on,' Haggia said.

'What about him?' Prophet looked up at the monitor where Marshall Dailly was interviewing some people he must have hoped would provide him with local colour. They would probably only provide him with a rash.

'He's no use. He's busy all the time.'

I dreaded to think what with.

'Well, I don't know what to do,' Prophet said. 'Don't drag me into it.'

'You're supposed to tell her the prophecy, you're the damn prophet,' Haggia said.

'I haven't had a chance yet,' Prophet said. 'The big one threw me out.'

Either I fell on the floor or the floor rushed up to meet me at such pace that my sprawling on the floor was the end result. Either way I was upended, surrounded by packets of dried lentils and other pulses I'd never heard of.

'Now look what you've done,' Haggia said. Her voice came from a long way off, down some kind of tunnel.

'She'll go mad if anything happens to Sorcha,' Prophet said in a muffled kind of a way.

'Who will?' Haggia said.

'Get her some water.'

This was getting to be a habit of mine, lying vague and insensible while people talked about me over my head.

'Who'll go mad?' I managed.

'You see?' Haggia tutted. 'You can't say a word in front of this one.'

'Sit up,' said Prophet, with far more gentleness than I thought he would be able to manage. 'You'll have to bear with me, it's all a bit new. This place is weird. I'm sure you understand.'

I leant against the shelves and picked up a cool tin can to rest on my hot forehead. Prophet kicked a few of the tins out of the way and then stood very straight with his eyes closed. His hands were resting, one on top of the other, in front of his chest. In the half light of the shop his rags took on an almost beatific appearance, like robes he'd worn out on a long pilgrimage.

'Oh, is he doing it?' Haggia said plopping herself down next to me and handing me a bottle of water.

Prophet made a shushing sound.

We sat watching him. I sipped the water, rolling the can against my headache. Prophet gave a great sigh and when he spoke it was in the same voice he used when he was asleep.

'And so a time will come to pass when the vanguard will emerge from the underground to battle the forces of darkness for the first of the final times. There will be five to face these foes. One to speak in tongues, one to cleanse in flame, one to stand beyond sight, one to read beyond the veil and one to move the earth.'

Prophet opened one eye. 'Then there's some other stuff but I don't understand it, I'll keep that to myself for now. If that's all right?'

I nodded.

'And then there's something about a witch,' he said, sitting down on a bag of Fossilish Fuel brickettes. This was developed after the coal ran out and smelt like fresh manure, it was very cheap though. 'But I have trouble remembering that bit. It doesn't make much sense.'

'Is that witch as in a woman in black with a broomstick?'

'With a pointy hat?' Prophet said. His blues eyes were quite sparkly up close. 'No, there's no costume.'

'Who is she? Or he?' I said.

'Be a warlock if it was a he,' Haggia said.

'I think I've met her,' I said, surprising myself.

'It'll unravel,' Prophet stood up. 'Don't worry about it, youngster. We'll get there.'

He picked up an apple on his way out, tossing it in the air with a swagger.

'He won't pay for that, he never does,' Haggia said. 'It's like he doesn't understand how a shop operates.' She shouted after him but he had gone.

'I can't remember what he said.' All the stupid pieces of information I had floating around in my head and what Prophet had said failed to stick.

'Don't worry, I expect he'll send it to you. Somehow. You might get a pigeon, I don't think he's very good with technology.'

'He told me about the three the other day, but we couldn't find out anything about it. I thought maybe I'd misheard.'

'Now, you see,' Haggia hauled me to my feet. 'That's the kind of enquiry I can deal with.'

'Really?'

'Yes. The three, you say? '

'That's it.'

'You won't find out anything about that.'

'That's not very helpful.'

'You need to be looking for Nexus.'

'Nexus?'

'Look for that,' she patted my cheek. I was amazed she could reach. 'There, see? That's old news. It's all going to work out fine.'

But I caught a glimpse of her face as she turned to pick up two of the escaped cans. She looked like she was going to be sick, and not because of one of Emirhan's kebabs, because of something not working out fine.

I insisted on paying for the water and an apple of my own, then made my way back to my huge, empty home. A heavy humidity hung over the street, making the locals more restless and irritable. Rain was coming. Some kids were sitting on the railings outside the money shop, passing comment on the people in the queue that snaked around the corner. They used to say that if you gave a man a gun he could rob a bank, but if you gave him a bank he could rob everybody. But I guess no one listened to the wise people who said this, so we were stuck with money shops – establishments somewhere between the gun and the bank. The people queuing were waiting to pawn something for the weekend. They swapped whatever it was they had left for a few digits on their cards and blew it all numbing the pain. If they'd come round the hotel we could have done it for free but this was no time for such obvious altruism, we would have drowned beneath the tide of humanity crying out for help. Besides we took a little from here, a little from there and no one noticed, blanket charity was a luxury we couldn't afford. It would draw attention to us. The kids were trying to get a man with a pram to swap it for a packet of cigarettes. It was a good deal. He'd get next to nothing for that in the money shop, not with the birth rate being what it was. He counted the cigarettes in the packet and pushed the pram at the kids. They fought about who was getting aboard, fists flailing, unsettling the queue, then the smallest one crammed himself in, spiderish limbs dangling over the sides. They hauled him off down the street whooping like hyenas. The man walked away and the queue shuffled forward to fill the void.

There was a pile of Casino's clothes on the steps of hotel. I picked them up and brought them in for him lest they be stolen. Roach and Lola were in the pool room. They were staring at each other. I prayed that we weren't going to have another argument.

'Hello,' they said in unison. Lola's headphones were coiled up on the window sill.

'All right?'

'It's amazing,' Lola said.

Roach grinned an enormous grin. He looked most pleased with himself. 'I can speak languages.'

I spun a seven around on the green baize, with my fingers. 'Yeah? Which ones?'

'All of them,' Lola said.

'All of them?'

'All of them,' Roach breathed on his fingernails and dusted them off on his t-shirt. 'Even the dead ones I think.' He said something incomprehensible and claimed it was Aramaic. I had no option but to believe him.

'I guess being able to speak all those languages must have made you cleverer,' Lola said. 'Or able to use more of your brain or something. But it's definitely the languages, that's the thing.'

There was something very odd about being in the same room as Lola. I found my mind trying to settle itself into a still, calm pool, a pool without depths of any kind. It would have been almost meditative were it not for all the not thinking anything that I would prefer to keep private, that in itself I found stressful. She looked at me with an apologetic smile and I realised I would need more practice on the still, calm pool front.

'I think I should be able to turn it on and off,' she said. 'I'll get the hang of it.'

Roach and I looked at each other.

'Yes, exactly,' Lola said, but I wasn't sure to who.

'Where's Casino?' I said.

'We don't know,' Roach said.

'We were just wondering about that,' Lola said.

'I wondered in Udmurt,' Roach said.

'It was blissful,' Lola said. 'I couldn't understand a word of it.'

'His clothes are everywhere,' I said.

'I don't think he can be here,' Lola said. 'He can't make his brain invisible.'

I tried not to allow a thought to cross my mind about how it would be impossible to be even a casual acquaintance of someone who could read your thoughts.

'I am trying,' she said.

I had failed again

'Let's go to the OP,' Roach said. 'Then I can practise.'

So Roach was the one to speak in tongues, I had wondered what that one meant.

'What do you...' Lola turned to me and then shook her head. 'Don't worry.'

'Right, let's go,' Roach handed Lola her headphones.

I don't know when I decided not to say anything to them about my telekinetic shenanigans. I kept my mind occupied by thinking about the fastest routes from various points thorough the city so Lola wouldn't pick up on anything. I filled my mind instead of trying to empty it, it seemed more successful. We climbed over the wall at the back of the hotel and slipped through the network of narrow alleyways towards a quieter back street near the old station. We took a car from the car park at the back of another money shop, they were everywhere. The papers in it said it had been hocked for far less than a quarter of the parts were worth. Some people never got a break.

Lola drove. I swore for the thousandth time that I would never get in a car that had her behind the wheel ever again and Roach clung onto the dashboard so hard he snapped part of it off. We left the car wide open in a road on the edge of the OP, our nerves jangling to the fizz of Lola's headphones.

The OP was an area out East. It was everything Stadium City wanted to be when it grew up. In the massive migration that followed the turmoil after the floods and the invasions our hallowed isle was subject to a small influx of global citizens. Most people headed for the centre of the largest land masses even if most of them were deserts, they were wary of places near water. I guess when you're faced with a huge tidal wave that crushes everything you've ever known in its path, arid sand could be a comfort. The ones that ended up with us were the victims of an unfavourable current. They turned up in boats, barrels, on bits of wood. They perched on anything buoyant and went with the tides. Many of them made their way to the OP because they'd seen the iconic architecture rotting on the television or the web and wanted to be somewhere familiar. Any port in a storm. They moved into the shops and units in the abandoned shopping centre. Once the biggest mall in New Europa, it became the biggest squat. All the other buildings had been reappropriated, except the actual village which had been blown up by disgruntled people who'd had their estate demolished because it was in the way of something the paper dolls wanted to build but never did. The OP was a massive cultural jumble sale. You could get your hands on anything, anything at all, if you knew who to ask and in what language. It was Roach's oyster, his personal shellfish platter, in fact.

Lola lifted her headphones away from her ears a little. 'What?'

'Nothing,' Roach said. 'I didn't say anything.'

'Come on,' I said. 'Let's eat something we can't identify.'

The old velodrome was packed with food stalls and merchants. They were crammed in beneath the ripple of the roof like the sardines on sale at stall 4598. Once in a while a stall would slip a little on the banked side and the stall holder would tie the stall back down with ropes, like boat on a dock. It was almost a shame it was no longer a track, I would have liked to ride my bike round it. Roach sauntered through the crowd throwing out greetings like blessings. When it became apparent that he could say more than 'hello, how you are you, I'm fine' we attracted quite a following.

'Oh, this is bliss,' Lola said, pulling off her headphones. 'I can't understand a thing.'

'Do you want one of these?' Roach said, making an almost obscene gesture with something fish-like on a long black skewer.

We ate many, many free samples, I tried something from every Oceanic island and most of the recovered arctic plains too. My body rebelled against something that looked like an eyeball covered in yellow seeds, but I think only because Roach refused to tell me what it was and Lola, for a telepath, was no help. Whatever it was, my best attempts to swallow it were foiled first by my suspicion and then by my gag reflex.

'Let's go to the black market,' Roach said when we were full.

Only the most hardened OP denizen would go there. It was like an old souk, a maze of blind alleys and twisting hallways. Anything Administration didn't want you to have, you could get at the black market. Roach and I had never been to the black market but Lola had a brief relationship with a man who sold guns from the Asiatic Front there. He was the reason we had to move from our previous residence. He blew it up. We felt it would be churlish to complain too much though, he was in it at the time.

'So, anyone you can't speak to yet?' I said.

'Just one old man, but he didn't have all of his tongue,' Roach said.

'Really?'

'Yes, some gangsters cut it off,' Roach said. 'This other guy told me.'

'Gangsters?' I said. We didn't have those any more, unless you counted Enforce, even the McBrides were considered business men.

'Yeah, there were three of them, dressed immaculately, golden hair, with what he described as curly knives. I think he mean the edges were wavy, otherwise they would be useless.'

I shuddered. I don't mind casual violence but the premeditated, organised kind disturbs me.

We walked up the broad avenue to the market. I wondered what it had been like when it was white and new, instead of brown and peeling. A plane flew over and we all stopped to watch it pass. The flight to New Europa. It was a huge, white plane that looked too big and heavy to stay in the sky. It flew low to the ground, its engines roaring as it passed over us. It went once a month and a ticket cost more than anyone in the OP would make in a lifetime if they went about it all honest and above board, which of course they wouldn't. Still, none of us would throw anything hard earned away on a flight when you could stowaway on a reclamation ship for free if you had the right contacts. The plane disappeared into the cloud cover and I looked down in time to see that behind the burnt out ruin of the old media centre a car was circling like a shark. Roach saw it too. And Lola saw the thoughts.

'Who is it?' she said.

'I don't know, I've seen it a few times. Or one just like it.'

'Minos was thinking about that earlier. He must have seen it somewhere too. You saw it when you did the cash on delivery job, didn't you?' Lola realised what she'd said. 'I'm sorry, I'm trying to...' she spread her hands out in front of her. It was half shrug, half prayer. I noticed that she had started to bite her fingernails again.

The rain warning went off. It echoed through the park like a banshee and people started to move with more purpose to get undercover. They weren't sure what was in the rain at the moment but the puddles left yellow stains on the ground when they dried up. Still, it was an improvement on the rain we had a couple of months before. That rain was like milk and it melted plastic.

'Come on,' Roach said. 'Let's get lost.'

I couldn't work out how they'd done it but somehow the black market seemed to have endless floors piled up on top of each other, reaching far higher than the cracked, greying roof should have allowed. At first there seemed to be only endless curtains of cloth or bright plastic but hidden in between were people waiting for a buyer, a dealer or a piece of information. Only the whisper of voices and shifting curtains broke the silence. There were well-worn ladders leading from floor to floor. We stood in the cramped entrance trying to acclimatise.

A woman poked her head through a curtain of checked fabric to our left. She hissed at us.

'Come on,' Roach said. He looked very serious.

We followed and the woman pulled the fabric around us. The black market disappeared. She put one finger over her right eye.

'It means be quiet,' Roach whispered.

'What's going on?' I said, keeping my voice hushed.

Roach hissed and gulped at the woman and then tapped his forehead with the tip of his thumb.

'Where the hell is she from?' Lola whispered to me.

I don't know, I thought so as not to make any noise. She smiled.

'Gangsters,' Roach said under his breath. 'Although she calls them tribesmen. She means the same people that old man told me about.'

'The people who cut out tongues?' I whispered.

Roach nodded.

An alarm sounded, it wasn't loud but it still insisted you paid attention to it.

The woman made a strangled, whistling noise.

'That's the door,' Roach said. 'It's wired.'

I peered through a small, white netted square in the fabric. I could make out three figures through the mist of cloth. I found a small crack in the material and put my eye to it for a better view. The gangsters were tall and slim, I couldn't see any curly knives but I could take that on trust. Their hair was golden and their suits looked new and expensive.

Come down the NW sector and that hair will be off your head and in the hands of a dealer before you know it, I thought.

Lola chuckled.

The closest of the three men turned towards us. Or perhaps was it a woman. It was impossible to say.

'Run,' shouted Roach. 'Now. Run now.'

We split up. I ran through the curtain and skidded through a sheet of blue plastic and into a pile of empty beer crates. A man with a sniper's rifle pulled a red velvet curtain aside to my right and I didn't wait for him to write me an invitation. I was looking for the ladder at the far end of the building but found only a corner. I felt all disorientated. The walls were thick with a dark moss that smelt of chlorine. A low counter had been made out of two folding chairs and a length of chipboard, there was a slim knife like a stiletto stabbed into it. I pulled it free, although what I thought I would do with it I wasn't sure. I could hear a pair of footsteps coming towards me. There was a rattle from a beaded curtain, somewhere nearby, and then silence. I felt a nudge near my ankle and I looked down to see a small girl. She had curly black hair and no front teeth. She pointed upwards and then crawled across the stall, under the counter and disappeared. Above me there was a hole in the ceiling. I stood on the counter, pulled myself up and found the ladder. I kept going up and up the ladders until I reached the end of them. It was darker up on the top floor under the low ceiling. There were no curtains, just a mass of low tables and chairs with hundreds of people huddled around them. The air was thick with whispers here. I made my way to the far end and sat at a table near the wall, half an eye on the entrance while I looked for the exit. The table had a number nine scrawled on it in chipped blue paint. A man with a long plaited beard pushed a dog-eared business card across the table to me. I couldn't understand what it said. I slipped the stiletto out of my sleeve and stabbed it into the table. The man nodded and turned his attention to the other two men at the table. I sat next to the fat one, his bulk straining at his yellow shirt. They seemed to find my presence quite reasonable but they must have seen far worse in the black market. The man with the business card pulled a short roll of black velvet from somewhere inside his voluminous coat. He unrolled it and inside was a long grey cylinder. Its matte surface seemed to absorb all the light around it. The man unscrewed one end and a thin glass vial filled with a yellow liquid slipped into his palm. The two buyers seemed to back away a little. The fat buyer gave a nervous laugh and his business partner pushed his greasy hair out of his face and licked his lips. It was a bomb. I gripped the sides of the chair, if that thing went off it would take out everything in a twelve mile radius, and all the people outside the twelve miles but within fifty miles would spend the rest of their short pain-racked lives wishing they'd been nearer. The bomb was unpacked and then put back together with some skill and the fat man passed over a tiny black bag in payment. I was itching to know what was in the bag but I didn't like to think what they were going to do with their new toy. The three men looked at me. I put one finger over my right eye and held my breath hoping I wasn't trampling on any tribal allegiances. They nodded and stood up. It was finished. I moved to table ten, leaving my knife, wondering where the others were. Compared to the other tables this one seemed pretty pedestrian. A woman with thick ginger dreadlocks was buying a small plastic bag filled with drugs. She rubbed the white powder over her gums and handed over an old cardboard file full of yellowing paper and ragged photographs. The dealer flicked through the pages with great interest and then they leant over the table toward each other and kissed for a little too long and I realised that was the real exchange. I wondered what had passed between them. The woman left and the man sat down again. He looked me up and down and raised an eyebrow. I moved to the next table. I found Roach sitting in front of me with a turban wrapped around his head. He winked.

'Not in the mood?' he nodded toward the dealer with a smile.

'Nice disguise. Where's Lola?'

'Over to your right,' he said.

Lola was also in disguise. She had a woolly hat pulled down to her eyelashes and was wrapped in black. She was watching a man with a lizard on his shoulder gesticulating with great enthusiasm to another man on the other side of the room who watched with huge concentration and then made a complicated shape with his hands, high over his head.

'Oh dear,' Roach said. 'I think there's going to be a fight.'

Lola looked in our direction and Roach nodded.

He was right. The two men who had been throwing shapes at each other bounded across the room using the tables like stepping stones. The room was clearing and we slipped into the exodus. Daylight poured in as someone opened the black market equivalent of a fire escape and we slipped down the haphazard wooden steps that had been rammed into the shell of the building, below us I could see the mysterious car parked in a service road. We reached the ground and the crowd melted away into a few small groups of people wandering around the OP, nothing suspicious about them at all. The gangsters were nowhere to be seen. We too wandered away, Roach unravelling his turban as we went. Three gun shots rang out inside the market.

'They're pretty new on the scene, our golden-haired friends,' he said. 'No one knows where they're from or what they want.'

'It's their car, isn't it?' I said, knowing he would have checked that.

'Yes,' Roach said.

'Let's get out of here,' Lola said.

'Did you get anything from them?' I said, not sure of the right terminology.

'No. Nothing. Nothing at all,' she twisted her headphone cable around in her fingers. 'I wasn't thinking straight. I'm sorry.'

'Back to the hotel?' Roach said.

I nodded. 'Maybe Casino will put in an appearance.'

'I doubt it,' Lola said.

'Why? What's going on?' Roach said.

'He's up to something,' Lola said.

'I wish I knew what,' I said.

'I have a fair idea,' Lola said. 'I can try and fetch him home if you want.'

Roach looked at me too. 'Yeah, why not?' I said.

We dropped Lola near Queens and left the car we'd taken on the main road just up from Haggia's shop. The walk back to the hotel felt far too short. My problem, one of my problems, is that whatever is happening to me, wherever I am, I'm always yearning for something different. I wanted to go on holiday once, I was desperate to get out of the city, dying for a change of scene. The minute we got there I wanted to go home. As Roach and I wandered up to the side door of the hotel I wished we'd never gone to the arty party, I wished we'd gone to Loop's birthday party and left Doodle's money in a drop box for him. I wanted something to happen and now it was I wanted everything to go back to how it was when nothing was happening. I missed the comfort of being bored. Typical.

'What's up?' Roach said, keying our security code in.

'Nothing.'

'I don't need Lola to tell me that's not true,' he said. 'You seem kind of down.'

It was funny to think that when Roach and I first met it wasn't him that got me out of a sticky fix, but me that got him out of one. I had a client at Packet who ran a lot of high security data from their office at one end of the city to the office of another client way out west. It was one of those jobs that you could only do for a short while because someone would work out your price, thus working out how to get you to turn over the packages to them. Someone would get you in the end, it was inevitable, so they moved onto the next courier before that could happen. The company would call six or seven couriers and only one of us, me on that occasion, would have the real goods, the others were decoys. The real package would be followed, at a discreet distance, by a security guard, and that security guard was Roach. I thought he was a typical Work and Labour drone, too big and stupid to sit behind a desk so they used him as muscle. He also slowed me down on his silly scooter but I was supposed to remain in clear sight. One day I had dockets coming out of my ears and didn't have the time to wait for him at an Enforce stop line I ran into, so I skipped through and left him. Minos was providing me with security anyway, we didn't trust the official kind.

'Sorcha, that security guard of yours,' Minos came through on my wristset.

'Yeah?'

'He's just been pulled.'

'Yeah, Enforce stop line,' I said.

'I'm afraid not,' Minos said. 'They've worked out he's your security.'

'Who has?' I skidded to a stop.

'Whoever wants what you're carrying.'

Of course I had to go back for him, they would rough him up to within an inch of his life whether he gave them my details or not. He may have been slow but he was more civil than the other security goons I'd been lumbered with. He hadn't made a pass at me and that made a pleasant change. It turned out he was from a children's home as well, so I felt some kind of loyalty and a little guilt over my dismissing him as a substandard plastic doll. I rode back to the pretend stop line and they were still there, throwing real punches in their fake uniforms. My guy was massive and he wasn't going down so it was just a matter of time before they loaded him into a car and slipped him into something less comfortable, like the river. I cycled up to them and whistled a greeting, and then I rode off a little way. There were six of them altogether and they stopped hitting my security guard and looked at me, confused. I stopped again and shouted that they better come if they were coming. They shoved the giant aside and came after me, in their car. It was a short chase and I lost them underground. I delivered my package, dealt with two other dockets and then made my way back to Packet and a lecture about losing my security. Again.

'Roach,' said the big man, holding out his hand. He was sitting on his scooter outside Packet's office when I came out. He had a fat lip, his left eye was closed by an angry blue swelling and his left nostril was caked with blood. He wasn't pretty.

'Sorcha,' I almost lost my hand in his huge paw.

'I owe you one,' he said.

'No you don't,' I said. 'I shouldn't have left you.'

'Well, this stupid thing is so slow,' he said. 'I'm too heavy for it I think.'

'You might well be,' I said. 'Did you get fired?'

'Oh yes.'

'Does that mean you're homeless?' That was how these things often went.

'Oh yes.'

'Well, you better come home with me then.'

He looked all bashful and stared at his shoes.

'I'm offering you a place to stay not a meaningful relationship,' I said. 'Or even a meaningless one.'

'Right,' he said.

I remember that he had the audacity to look relieved.

I followed Roach into reception and kept following him until he settled down in the kitchen. He was waiting for me to say something but I couldn't think how to phrase it without sounding insane, even under those circumstances. Instead I made a spoon move itself from one end of the table to the other. He didn't notice so I made it move back again.

'What was that?' he said.

'What?'

His eyes bugged out and he waved his hands around. All the languages in the world on the tip of his tongue and he was speechless.

I made the spoon move around in a lazy circle.

Roach leapt up and grabbed the chopping board from the worktop, he approached the spoon like he was hunting a tiger and then beat it with the board.

'I think it's already dead,' I shouted over the noise. 'Roach, stop.'

'Did you see that? Did you see that?' Roach flicked the spoon off the table with the edge of the chopping board, panting.

'Relax,' I said. 'It was me.'

'What?'

'It was me.'

'What was you?'

'The spoon moving.'

'I don't understand.'

'I moved it.'

'You didn't touch it.'

'I don't need to.'

'I don't understand.'

The spoon slid out from under the dishwasher where it had been hiding from the chopping board's attack and floated up onto the table. Roach crept up on it and snatched it out of the air.

'I thought you said you couldn't do anything?' he said.

'I didn't realise it was me.'

'Did you think we were haunted?' Roach said, examining the spoon, looking for wires I guess.

'No, I...'

'What?'

'I don't know.'

Roach laughed and slapped me on the back. I almost bit my tongue in half.

'I thought it was odd,' he said. 'You being left out like that.'

'Really?'

'Yeah,' Roach said. 'Because if anyone was going to have something really weird happen to them, it would be you. We sometimes put money on what madness is going to befall you.'

Roach was so excited he went to wake Minos, who was sleeping after a string of night shifts. He was as mad as a scalded squirrel about being woken but when Roach told him the news, and I showed him the news, he too was very excited. We put on a show for Roach where Minos set something small on fire and I put it out by making a wet towel smother it without any apparent human intervention. We sat back very pleased with ourselves.

'What else have you been doing?' Minos said. 'I can't believe I've missed all the fun.'

'We went to the OP,' Roach said. 'It was fun until the gangsters turned up.'

'Gangsters?' Minos gave a long whistle.

'Yeah, they drive a model of car we've become familiar with,' I said.

'They're the ones who were following you?' Minos rubbed his chin, sometimes I thought he would wear it out.

'We think so,' I said. 'My guess would be that they're Doodle's problem. But it's only a guess.'

'I like your guesses, always have. But cash?' Minos said. 'What do they want cash for?'

'Symbolic,' I said. 'They don't want cash, they want to make a point.'

'And what is their point?' Minos said.

'I don't know,' I said.

'Whatever their point is, they're getting it across loud and clear in the OP,' Roach said. 'Even the black market is wary of them.'

'Wow,' Minos said. 'I wonder if they do business in Stadium City.'

I nearly said that I'd been there earlier and had seen the car, but then I remembered the man falling over the railing and how the cards looked flying after him, so I kept quiet. I was lucky because not a minute later Lola walked into the kitchen with a furious expression on her face, dragging Casino behind her.

'Hey, Sorcha is telekinetic,' Minos said in greeting.

'How delightful for her,' Lola said.

The three of us just stared at her and her attitude and Casino continued to look like a small child who'd been caught opening someone else's birthday presents.

'I'm glad you two are here,' Roach said. 'Let's all have a talk.'

I pushed two chairs out from around the table for them without moving a muscle and gave Lola an unpleasant smile. Casino slipped into his chair and Lola banged hers around a bit to make sure it was under its own control.

'What have you been up to?' Minos said to Casino.

'Nothing much,' Casino said, looking at Lola. 'Just hanging really. It's been...'

'Yes?' Lola said. They'd had some kind of row again.

'Tough,' he finished.

They all looked at me. 'You said we were going to talk,' I said to Roach.

'Right,' he said. 'I did.'

My wristset beeped to let me know that there was a message for me. It was from Prophet. I hadn't given him my number but under the circumstances I wasn't surprised he'd got it. It was the message he'd given me earlier, it scrolled across the display over and over again becoming no clearer.

'What have I missed?' Casino said.

'Hang on a minute,' I sent Prophet's message to render, because it seemed like it deserved something old-fashioned like paper, and went to retrieve the copies. I felt like the dolls in the Ministries must feel, striding around with important memos they didn't quite understand. I was gone for just a couple of minutes but when I got back Lola and Minos were engaged in a full scale argument because Minos had thought that Lola was in a bad mood and Lola, as far as I could tell, wasn't disagreeing with the observation, more the appropriateness of sharing it with the group.

'My thoughts are my own private business,' Minos said.

'Do you think I like this?' Lola ripped her headphones off and flung them across the table at him.

'Yeah, I reckon you do,' Minos said.

'Come on, can't you calm down?' Casino said. 'I've got a headache.'

'Yes, let's calm down,' Roach said. 'Sorcha, what have you got there?'

I handed round copies of the prophecy as though I were at a meeting in one of the office blocks down south. I had seen them all sitting in meetings when I was couriering. It was like visiting a home for lost pets watching them gazing out of the windows, yearning for an escape. One of the blocks had a huge display in reception which said 'freedom to work is freedom to live' in great big blue letters but they didn't look free. They looked sedated. Similar and sedated. I launched into a quick recap for Casino. He looked a little baffled but took it all in.

'Then this morning Prophet told me this,' I referred them to the paper.

'And so a time will come to pass when the vanguard will emerge from the underground to battle the forces of darkness for the first of the final times,' Minos said, with none of Prophet's gravitas. 'There will be five to face these foes. One to speak in tongues, one to cleanse in flame, one to stand beyond sight, one to read beyond the veil and one to move the earth.'

He made it sound like a shopping list but at least my brain didn't attempt to shut down that way. I managed to stay upright and lucid.

Casino laughed, a bitter kind of laugh that made Roach frown. Casino wasn't his usual self and I didn't much like this unusual self.

'What about the three?' Minos said, ignoring Casino.

'Haggia said we'll never find anything on it but that it's connected to Nexus. We should be able to find something on that.'

'This is ridiculous. Did she say anything sensible?' Casino said.

'She said it was old news,' I said not making any sense either.

'That, we can work with,' Minos leapt up.

'See?' I said to Casino. 'Sensible.'

We all traipsed out to the restaurant and huddled around as Minos searched for Nexus in DarkNet. We fidgeted behind him, until even Roach with his new attention span was sighing with boredom. Half an hour later we had been banished to the kitchen. The DarkNet sprang up about a decade ago, once the government and few remaining corporations took over the web, or whatever they called it. It began as an annex of the official web but decided it would live a life all of its own. It was angry and out of control. You could stare into it and understand what it was like to stare into the abyss, everything and nothing was in there.

We told Casino about the black market and the gangsters.

'I would've been all right,' Casino said as he vanished.

It was odd, he didn't disappear in an instant, but he didn't fade either.

'I've been finding your clothes everywhere,' I said.

'I know,' he said from nowhere. 'I don't like wearing clothes while I'm invisible. It feels wrong, like you wouldn't go swimming in a crash helmet.'

I nodded like that made total sense. 'The black market, I totally forgot, I didn't do anything with my,' I couldn't think of the word and just opened and closed my mouth like a fish out of water. How apt.

'Well, we were panicking a bit, so you were probably running on instinct,' Roach said. 'It takes a while to get used to anything new.'

'I was not panicking,' I said.

'She wasn't,' Lola said. 'She's very calm in a crisis.'

'I've got inner peace,' I said. I didn't, I knew I hadn't.

'I think it's more that you don't quite understand the seriousness of the situation,' Casino said.

There was a whoop from down the hall before I could make a suitable retort and we went to investigate the outburst.

'Got it,' Minos said. 'Nexus. Watch this.'

We settled down in front of a huge screen and, after a long pause filled with Minos swearing and hitting the keyboard, a familiar face appeared. It was Marshall Dailly. He was at the Academy University standing beneath a large sign saying Geography and Geo-crisis Faculty. They liked to keep things simple on the local news station. It was a fluff piece at the end of the programme loop. Marshall was standing next to a man whose cardigan was trying to eat him.

'And you're the man who discovered this new island?' Marshall said.

'Yes,' said the man.

They cut to a map of this new island, it was hundreds of miles of the coast of the ESG region of New Europa, straight out to the west. They cut back to Marshall and his new friend. They talked about why it had appeared. He had no idea.

'And how did you discover it?'

'In a game.'

'In a game?' Marshall was finding this interviewee hard work.

'Yes, in Global Explorers.'

Marshall hadn't heard of Global Explorers so he didn't pursue that. 'And I'm right in thinking that they've named it after you, yes?'

'That's right,' said the man. 'That was the prize for finding it. They name it after you.'

Who do?' Marshall looked at the camera, it was almost a cry for help.

'Imagination Industries.'

That made sense. They built the official games. Global Explorers was a weird one, it hadn't made it to the illegal houses.

'And remind us of your name,' Marshall said.

'I'm Nexus. Professor Nexus,' said the man, twisting a button on his cardigan round and round.

'Thank you, Professor Nexus,' Minos said, pausing the clip. 'I wonder if this island is where the three are.'

'Haggia just said they're connected,' I said.

'And how does she know that?' Casino said.

I looked up at Marshall Dailly's face, frozen on the screen. I shrugged.

Roach pulled the paper with the prophecy on it from his pocket. 'I guess we wait,' he said. 'Wait for further instructions.'

Lola put her fingers in her ears and shook her head. Then she made a growling noise that I didn't like one little bit.

# Chapter Seven

For the next few days I kept a low profile. Casino and Lola continued to prowl around, spoiling for a fight, until Casino absented himself again. I found myself spending more time away from the hotel, Roach and Minos seemed to be doing the same. It was hard not to finger Lola as the problem. She wasn't coping very well with her new ability to see what was going on in people's heads. We were all relieved that it wasn't us, and our sympathetic tolerance must have been driving her mad. Madder. It was Haggia who had the brainwave and, once I'd persuaded Lola it was worth a try, Haggia made us an appointment with Mr Gru for the very next day.

'Do you think it will work?' Lola said.

'Definitely,' I said. 'Definitely.' Who knew? It was worth a try.

The fading card next to the doorbell said Hypnotit, but Mr Gru was a hypnotist. Lola rang the bell and then wiped her finger on my jacket to remove whatever germs she had picked up.

'What? It's sticky,' she said.

Gru's Hall of Hypnosis, which it wasn't called but I thought it ought to be, was on a busy street near the Flyover. We could see it looming over the rooftops as it snaked its way into the city. Neither of us mentioned it, which is to say that neither of us mentioned it out loud, I was up to all manner of mentioning inside my head which Lola would have been party to, but for any of the hundreds of people pouring past there was no mention of the Flyover and the site of our accident. Not that I thought it was an accident any more. At long last the rattle of many bolts and chains being released came from behind the door and it opened to reveal a very, very tall man. He was also very, very thin so looked as though he had been stretched. His face was a study of professional detachment and reassuring calm.

'Lola Capuzzo,' he said, looking at me.

'No, I'm Lola,' she frowned at him.

'Come in, come in,' the man said. 'I'm Mr Gru.'

Mr Gru's office looked as though it too had been flooded at some point and as the tide receded all his possession had been marooned at one end of the room. Two chairs were shipwrecked in front of a desk, Gru gestured that we sit in these as he sank behind the desk. We could just see the top of his head behind the piles of paper and every so often he would peer round the side of an old box-shaped monitor as if making sure we were still there.

'You are friends of Haggia's I understand,' he said.

'I am,' I said.

'I've never met her,' Lola said. She was still glaring at Mr Gru for some reason.

'Haggia's said you might be able to help with a problem Lola is having,' I said. 'It's a very strange problem and we've tried everything but nothing seems to work.

'I see,' Mr Gru said.

'If you're not going to concentrate then we're not going to get anywhere,' Lola said. 'And neither of us is interested in seeing your feeble attempts at macramé.'

'What?' Mr Gru rose to his feet. 'I don't know what you are talking about.'

'You see,' I folded my arms. 'That's a very good example of the problem.'

'I can read your mind,' Lola said.

'Oh,' Mr Gru sat down at speed, like he was leaping in reverse. 'Oh, I see.'

'I would like to be able to not read your mind,' Lola said.

'Haggia said that you stopped her from doing something by hypnotising her,' I said.

Gru looked surprised. 'Did she tell you what it was?'

'No, but you've just told Lola,' I said.

Lola looked very surprised too, just for a moment and then raised her hand to indicate she wouldn't say a word. I wouldn't ask either. If Haggia had wanted me to know she would have told me. Gru looked like he wanted to be sick.

'Can you help?' I said.

'Yes,' Gru said. 'Once I have finished with you, you will never be able to tell what private thoughts anyone is thinking.'

'I need to be able to turn it off and on,' Lola said.

'I see,' Gru drummed his long fingers on the desk.

'Possible or not?' I said.

Gru pulled open a drawer with a terrible creaking sound and after a brief rummaging held up a finger. A red rubber band was hanging from its tip. 'Possible,' he said. 'You will have to wait outside.'

I looked at Lola to check and she nodded.

The first time I met Lola I took an instant dislike to her. She was in the back of a car with a man old enough to be her father but of entirely the wrong ethnicity to be said father. I noticed the car because it drove straight into me as it turned left at a junction that didn't allow for left turning. It was one of the few accidents I've had that I could, hand on heart, promise wasn't my fault. I spun across the road somehow dancing between the other cars like an ice skater. The driver hit the brakes and skidded after me on the slick, wet surface. I was already shouting the right mix of obscenities and street legalese to get their attention. I came to a halt on the road and found I'd lost most of the top layer of skin on my right arm. The woman who would turn out to be Lola lowered the electric window and raised an eyebrow.

'The trouble with couriers,' she got out of the car. 'Is that they think they own the roads, when actually I think you'll find he does.' She pointed at the man who wasn't her father. I recognised him from the news. Hippolytan did indeed own the roads. All of them.

His face oozed into a smile. 'Good morning. If you could peel yourself off of my road that would be great.'

'You know what?' I was tangled up in my bike, having difficulty getting up. 'I don't think I can.'

'Maybe Sebastian could help you?' Lola said. She was standing over me, hands on her hips like she was admonishing an errant servant.

Sebastian climbed out of the drivers seat. It was like watching an albino orang-utan lumbering up a tree.

'Let me help you,' he put his hand round my throat and picked me up, shaking me free of my bike. He put me on the ground but didn't let go. His fingers went all the way round my neck like I was an inconvenience inside his fist.

'Now, about that compensation you were just suggesting you would be entitled to,' Lola gave me a look I was no match for.

'Was I?' I said.

'Yes,' she said. 'As you skimmed that red car.'

'The red one?' It was a tro-tro, but she wouldn't have known that in her paper world. 'I don't remember that.'

'No?'

'No. Maybe it was the concussion setting in?'

We were causing a traffic jam. People had started sounding their horns and shouting.

'Lola, darling?' said the man in the car. 'Let Sebastian punch her in the face a couple of times if she's giving you trouble. They're scum.'

I smiled at her like she was my best friend and let my eyes slide off her, past the dent I'd left in the car's wing, and onto the licence badge in the windscreen. I picked up my bike, it was a little bent but nothing I couldn't fix. 'I'm terribly sorry to have bothered you,' I said. 'Have a wonderful day.'

'Lola, get in this car now,' the man said. 'Enough messing about.'

As I turned to walk away I saw, just for a second, the bravado slip. She looked afraid.

I hobbled home and Casino picked gravel out of me and patched up my arm while Minos found out where the car lived.

'What did you say her name was?' he said.

'He called her Lola,' I patted my bandage. Casino was an excellent first-aider, thanks to his own reactionary schooling.

Minos clattered away at the keyboard for a moment and then her face appeared on the screen.

'She's a Capuzzo. The youngest. The black sheep of the family,' he said. 'Did a runner. Met the king of the roads at a party a few months ago.'

'Capuzzo?' Casino said. 'Where do I know that name from?'

'Most places,' I said. 'Where's Roach?'

We waited until night fell and then lifted a van to take us to the Riverside Sector where Hippolytan and his car lived. He had a huge house on the north side, away from the river, four storeys hidden inside a large garden behind larger walls and an imposing gate. The arrogance of the man had led him to install only the most cosmetic of security systems which it took me a mere thirteen and a half seconds to disable. We climbed over the wall and Minos fell in a rose bush so we sat under a tree sharing a joint while he picked the thorns out of his thigh.

'What are we going to do?' Casino said.

'Just wait and see what happens,' I said.

'I just want to know what the plan is,' he said. 'Don't be like that.'

'No, I mean we're going to wait and see what happens. That is the plan.'

'It's always the plan,' Minos said. 'It's safest that way.'

The lights were on in what must have been the living room. It was so big the fresco on the ceiling didn't look ostentatious. There was a grand piano off to one side of the bay window. We were just about to get bored and wander around to the back of the house when the door to the room opened and Lola walked in. She was wearing a bathrobe and had a towel wrapped around her head. She got a cigarette out of a box on a small table.

'Who keeps their cigarettes in a box?' Minos said, his pockets full of loose tobacco and screwed up papers as usual.

'Someone's coming,' Roach said.

It was Hippolytan. His face was twisted and red with rage and we could hear him shouting but couldn't quite make out the words. Lola moved around the sofa in the middle of the room and held up her hands. He was over the sofa in a bound and threw the cigarette towards the window, it sparkled orange as it hit the glass then fell. Hippolytan took Lola by the shoulders and we held our breath. He was huge and she was tiny. He threw her on to the sofa but she scrambled to her feet, then he threw her over the top of the piano. She didn't get up. He shouted for a bit longer and then stormed out slamming the door. No one said anything. Roach pulled me to my feet as Minos delved around in his bag then passed Casino a crowbar. Casino slid the window open and I climbed inside. Everything was quiet and Lola was lying in a heap on the floor by the piano stool, blood trickling out of her nose. I gestured for Roach to come inside. He picked her up and passed her through the window to Minos and Casino. I was about to climb through after them when I noticed the cigarette on the floor. It had smouldered a small black hole in the carpet.

'Give me your matches,' I said to Minos.

He poked his head in the window and looked down. 'Perfect,' he said.

The curtains caught light as we crept around the building looking for the back gate and as we carried Lola back to the van the house was glowing and people were shouting. It would burn to the ground because funding changes Hippolytan had helped approve meant there was no one left to put it out.

'Where am I?' Lola said when she came round a couple of hours later.

We explained her location and a few ground rules. She stayed a week. Then another. A few years later she still maintained that we kidnapped her.

Two hours I waited outside Gru's office, two long hours. I stared at the cracks in the ceiling until I could make out line drawings of animals and then stared some more until they turned into ghouls.

'He's done it,' Lola flung the door open. She was wearing the red rubber band on her wrist. 'Think some things.'

My mind went blank, but after a moment I thought about the layout of the ground floor of the hotel. Lola shook her head and then pulled the rubber band off her wrist and I thought about it a bit more.

'You've forgotten about the cloakroom,' she said and we did a little dance around the room.

'So, another happy customer,' said Gru from the doorway. 'Put it back on.'

'Of course,' Lola said. 'Sorry.'

'And now the indelicate matter of reimbursement,' Gru said. 'How would you like to pay?'

'Rice,' I said.

'Rice?' Gru said. 'You can get rice?'

'Yes,' I held my arms out wide to demonstrate the size of the sack Haggia had donated. 'A bag about so big? Delivery tomorrow.'

'Rice?' Gru said. 'It's too wonderful to believe.'

Lola wandered down the hallway with a blissful expression on her face. She waited on the pavement outside leaning towards passersby like she was listening in. She kept murmuring that she couldn't read anything and I was unsurprised to see that people were staring at her.

'Tell me,' Gru said. 'She only thinks that she can read minds, right?'

'No, she really can,' I said.

Gru laughed. 'You are joking, I see that little twinkle in your eye. Very funny.'

'I'm not joking.'

'I really am a textile enthusiast you know,' Mr Gru said. 'Are you interested in crafts at all?'

'How long have you been a hypnotit?' I said.

He looked confused. I sighed and decided I would be sending Roach with the rice. I packed Lola off to see Stark, her blissed-out, mellow vibe was futzing up my hard-bitten cynicism, while I sloped off to Greasy Clive's for a late breakfast. The money shop opposite didn't seem to be doing the roaring trade that it had been before. There were people outside the shop but they were more in a huddle than a queue, and the only thing they had in their hands was the fetid air. I had some inside information that someone had hacked into the money shop accounts and moved all the credit that they had taken from people back into those people's accounts. It hadn't stopped there though, they had also redistributed the sizeable balance of the shop's business account to all its customers so that the owners had not a penny to their name and the customers would be quite comfortable for a while. I got this inside information from myself, because it was me that had done it.

'What are you chuckling at?' said Clive as I sat down at the cleanest table.

'Oh, nothing,' I said.

He had run out of the kitchen as soon as he saw it was me, like he wanted to ask me something. His hair was escaping from beneath his hairnet and lank curls hung over his forehead. He didn't look very appetising but he wasn't on the menu. 'Well, it's good to see you happy, Sorcha,' Clive said. 'It really is.'

'Right, what have you done?' I said.

Clive looked askance, flapping the bottom of his apron like he was chasing imaginary nuisances from the cafe, as if that would prove that he was innocent.

'I'll have the usual,' I said.

He hovered.

'Today,' I said. 'With coffee. Your tea's all funny.'

'Right,' he shuffled back off the kitchen. 'It's government tea. It's not my fault. Get me some better tea if you don't like it.' Clive wasn't a fan of constructive criticism.

I watched as Enforce pulled up at the shop opposite. Inside information suggested that the owners hadn't been able to make their protection payment and as usual Enforce had descended within hours of this unfortunate event. They had three cars, one armoured, and I watched as they clattered across the pavement, guns toted. They pulled down heavy face masks and one of them threw a sonic bomb into the shop. The boom lifted everything into the air by a few centimetres for a moment and Clive swore in technicolor among the crashing of pot and pans. The officers stormed into the shop in formation and reappeared moments later hauling the shop owners behind them like luggage. As I watched Enforce line everyone up, face down on the pavement, I could hear Clive talking to someone. This was odd given that with his temperament the rest of the catering industry had decided he was better off working alone. I leant to the left a little so I could see through the serving hatch. He was calling someone and that call involved a lot of nodding and the words she's here. Other than me there was no one else he could have been referring to. I made sure that the location service on my wristset was switched on. I watched the red sauce and brown sauce shift themselves around on the table, it was some comfort. I smiled at him when he brought the coffee, and he looked alarmed. The bell gave its familiar, cheerful ding as the door opened and a woman dressed in a raincoat came in. The amount of lipstick she wore and the fact that it wasn't raining suggested that the raincoat was all she had on. I waited with bated breath and no small amount of anxiety but she ordered a tea to go and went. It wasn't until I had finished my breakfast, Clive had taken my empty plate and insisted that I have another coffee on the house that his machinations came to light. A man I had seen somewhere before sauntered through the door. I caught him winking at Clive before he thought I'd seen him. Then he reeled in amazed recognition and sat down opposite me with a smile that came with a wattage rating.

'Hello,' he said. 'Fancy seeing you here.'

'Indeed,' I couldn't place him but then he was so good looking every single thought in my head was busy thinking about that.

He held out a manicured hand. 'Agent Tourniquet. Remember? We met at my party.'

'We didn't meet,' I remembered.

'Our eyes met,' he said, making them do it again.

He was a step up from Mr Gru that was for sure, a whole flight of stairs.

'Can I get you a beverage?' Clive appeared at Tourniquet's elbow.

'What's that?' he pointed at my mug.

'I think it's supposed to be coffee,' I frowned at Clive.

'One of those, please,' he said. 'And a bun.'

I stared at him, it wasn't a hardship. He had one of those faces that got better the more you looked at it. It was perfect in that it wasn't quite perfect. It was a fascinating face and the rest of him matched up, he was tall and slim, yet broad shouldered. He looked like he ran or something similar, not a cyclist, he wasn't quite stringy enough, but there was, after all, something about him that wasn't quite perfect.

'Well, what brings you here?' I said before I fell to the bottom of his huge brown eyes never to find my way back up again.

'I was just passing.'

I laughed. Even if I hadn't witnessed his little exchange with Clive it would have been a hilarious lie. Men like Tourniquet didn't come into the NW Sector.

'Honestly,' he said. 'I was just down at Massey's and he recommended a kebab shop up here, but it isn't open.'

'Massey?'

'He said he knew you. Do you play?'

Clive banged one of his beverages down on the table and hovered for eavesdropping purposes.

'No, I don't play,' I said once Clive had slouched off. How on earth had my name come up?

'I play for research purposes,' Tourniquet winced as he burnt his pretty mouth on the coffee. 'To stay in touch with what the real people are doing.'

'The real people?'

'Yes.'

'Do you mean the little people?'

He smiled and somewhere a rainbow appeared. 'No, I mean real people, not like the administration wonks.'

'And the real people don't play at the legal houses?'

'No, the Work and Labour people play at the legal house and already I know what they're doing.'

'They're doing as they're told,' I said.

'Exactly,' he said. 'Boring.'

Somewhere inside me is a very sensible me who keeps an eye on me and looks after me when I am about to get in trouble. I don't often listen to sensible me but it is a comfort to know that she's there. Sensible me said it was time to go before I did anything silly, like dropping my heart into his coffee mug so he could drink it down.

'Right, this has been lovely,' I said. 'I've got real people things to be doing.'

'That's a shame,' Tourniquet said. 'It's been nice to meet more than just your eyes.'

I made a very noncommittal sound.

'If you get a yen to play a game you should pop down to Massey's and immerse yourself in his new one.'

'Should I?' I said. So, he'd got his game but hadn't needed our help with it. I would be dropping in to see Massey but not to play his stupid game.

'Yes, I think it will appeal to you. You play as part of a gang of five, each with a different power,' Tourniquet said.

'A different power?'

'Yeah, one is telepathic, one is omnilingual, one can do pyromancy, I forget the others,' he said. 'You have to save the world basically.'

'Basically?' I tried to ignore the way the sign on the door was spinning, saying open then closed, open then closed.

'Yes,' he said. 'It's quite brilliant. It'll be massive, I think. Massey said it's already all anyone will play.'

'And what character do you play?' I said.

'Not one of those characters. There's another set of characters, they're more political, more head then heart,' Tourniquet said. 'There are five of them as well. I play one of them.'

'Of course you do.'

'I guess I'm just more interested in strategy that running around setting fire to things. I don't suppose you play chess?'

'A little.'

'Anyway, this game is interesting, very different somehow. It becomes more ambiguous the more you play. The way decisions stack up against you is fascinating.'

'Sounds amazing, really it does.'

'You should play,' he said. 'You'd love it.'

'I wouldn't. And I don't play the games. Only a fool would.'

He smiled and sipped his coffee. 'Are you calling me a fool?'

'Yes, I think I am.'

'Well, if the cap fits,' the smile became a grin. 'Listen if you ever do play it I've got a cheat code you can use. '

'I won't play,' I said.

'Well, it's ATLSB-BNAMAH,' he spelt the letters out at speed. 'I bet you won't remember it.'

There was something about the way he said it that made me suspicious. It was just the kind of useless piece of random information I would be able to remember. I'd still be able to recall it in fifty years. Tourniquet laid down his challenge as though he knew that. I told Clive he could put everything on my tab as I strode through the door to get some air.

'See you around,' Tourniquet said and the happy bell rang out as the door closed.

The day only got worse. Before I had a chance to get my jacket off and decide what to do about my new friend, Casino appeared.

'Yum's been looking for you,' I said. 'For some reason he thinks if you don't answer when he calls your number you'll answer when he calls mine. Repeatedly. At all hours.'

'Sorry, Sorcha,' he sounded anything but.

'You will be if you lose your job,' I said.

He just disappeared.

I walked off to the kitchen in search of comfort. I knew I would find some there, it was cake shaped, Roach had been baking. There was a definite improvement in food since Haggia appeared on the scene. She could get anything and she delivered.

'Lola ate it all,' Casino said as he appeared again. 'I saw her.'

I thought-slammed the cupboard door. 'Could you not creep up on me like that?'

'Don't be so jumpy.'

'We've cured Lola,' I said. 'Not that you'll care.'

'Can you cure me? That would be nice,' he said.

'You don't need curing, you can just stay visible, can't you?' I realised I hadn't spoken to him since the on-purpose, as I had started to call the accident. We'd talked but we hadn't really spoken.

I was friends with Casino before everyone else was, but that was true of everyone. I met people first then they kind of became part of the family. Other people drifted in and out, usually attached to Lola or Casino but they never stayed long. I used to drink at the Zombie Palace out west because their bar couldn't read a particular kind of credit card. Every time you paid with it the machine would load it with credit rather than take it off. Not everyone had one of these cards, only me and Minos, which was much more than just a coincidence. Casino worked behind the bar and was eagle-eyed enough to work out what was going on one particular night when he hadn't been on shift long enough to get drunk. The Zombie Palace was really called the Zuzumba Palace but the staff were always so smashed it had been renamed.

'Hello, Casino,' I said reading his name badge. For some reason it had been written out twice, maybe because it was so blurred the first time they had to do it again. It also seemed to be animated which struck me as a little odd.

'Hello,' he said, leaning across the bar and the many empty glasses piled up there. 'May I ask you a question?'

'Of course you can,' I said. 'I might even answer it.'

'How come we seem to be paying you to drink?'

'How do you mean?' I said. 'Paying me to drink? What a fabulous concept.'

'Isn't it?' he said and hurried off down the bar to greet a very pretty young man in a very silly pair of spectacles.

I thought a tactical retreat was in order, so I made my excuses and wandered around trying to find out where they'd move the doors to. When I found them Casino was waiting outside.

'You seem like fun,' he said. 'Fancy a drink?'

'Yes, but not here, the bar staff are very suspicious,' I almost said but didn't due to the word suspicious being troublesome.

A few weeks later he got me a job at Packet when my previous courier gig fell through. This wasn't my fault, it was all due to an unfortunate incident with someone's wife and an inflatable dinghy with a puncture. He'd been working two jobs to save up for a place to stay which seemed unnecessary given all the room we had access to, so we invited him to move in. You could always tell when people were going to stick, because Minos and Roach, who were part of the family at this point, didn't chase them away. Casino fitted right in, like he was a long lost cousin or something, the offspring of some embarrassing uncle.

Casino picked up an apple from a fruit bowl on the table and rubbed it on his sleeve. 'I don't think I can just stay visible,' he said. 'It's addictive. It's all the things you can do when no one can see you.'

'I see.'

'I don't expect you to understand,' he took a huge bite out of the apple.

'I do understand. It's like the time Lola bought home that guy who was addicted to the homebrew made out of rubber and he would wander off for days and then when he came back he'd pick fights and spy on people.'

'He was a drunk.'

'He was struggling with an addiction.'

'I seem to remember you weren't so sympathetic at the time. It was you insisted he had to go,' Casino said.

'I seem to remember he stole a load of Minos's gear and then hit Roach with a baseball bat but if you're seeing it through rose-coloured glasses that's up to you.' I realised, watching him eat that apple, that he always ate the core as well and that annoyed me. 'Minos wants to know where his AV equipment has gone, by the way.'

'Are you going to get rid of me?' he said.

'Don't be ridiculous,' I said.

'Because you could, you know, you could just say the word and everyone would think what a good idea it was and how clever you were and they'd do it. Roach would pick me up by the collar and throw me out for you.'

He was still wittering on as I walked through the hotel, up the sweeping staircase. I hated arguing with people and he was, as I had pointed out, being ridiculous.

I flung myself on my bed which groaned under the force of my fling. I had used telekinesis to slam the door. It's not as dramatic as doing it yourself but it is easier and does, somehow, make you feel much better. Bad planning on my part meant that I had made a terrible error and found myself holed up in my room with nothing to eat or drink and it was the drink part, the alcoholic drink part, that I found most frustrating. I lay on the bed contemplating Massey's new game and it's similarity to Prophet's jolly tale. I figured that it was a coincidence and if Prophet hadn't said anything I would have thought nothing more about Tourniquet's gaming habit. I knew there was something wrong with the logic of that but I didn't care to work out what it was. My thoughts returned to the alcoholic drink and I wondered if perhaps I needed a break from drinking. Casino woke me up from a shallow doze by banging on the door. I told him to go away.

'I've come to say I'm sorry,' he said through the door.

'Have you?' I'd been had like that before. They say that and then you let them in and they carry on arguing.

He opened the door and I just could see him standing in the hallway looking forlorn.

'Shut the door,' I said.

The door shut.

'I'm on this side,' said a voice after a moment.

'Right,' I said.

Something came and lay on the bed next to me and a depression appeared in the covers that was the shape of a reclining Casino.

'You're the second strange man to get in my bed in a week,' I said. 'At least you don't snore as much as Prophet.'

Casino appeared. 'That is disgusting. But knowing you, you are just being crude and haven't actually committed to anything as long term as a one night stand.'

'I like my own space.'

'Yes, we know,' he said.

'I'll have you know that a very handsome man tracked me down for coffee earlier,' I said.

'Really?'

'Yes,'

'Who?'

'Oh, no one.' I found I didn't want to tell him about it.

'Let me guess, you fell madly him love with him for five minutes and then crossing the road you saw someone on the way home and fell in love with her and then coming up the street to the hotel you saw someone else and...'

'I thought you came to apologise?'

'I did. I'm sorry.'

'OK. You can go now.'

He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand hard enough to leave a red mark. I watched it fade while he frowned at the ceiling. His dark hair formed a quiff as it fell back on to the pillow.

He turned to me. 'If you could make yourself invisible, what would you do?'

I thought for a minute. 'Oh, no,' I said. 'You didn't.'

He did.

For three weeks or so the entire city had been Casino's playground. There's nothing you can't see when you can't be seen, but human nature dictates that once you've watched enough strangers fornicating, what you really want to see is an ex-lover humiliated. I arranged my face into an expression of non-judgmental blankness and agreed that he could tell me anything.

Casino headed over to Queens where Yomo was shacked up with a rich club organiser called Enterprise Smythe. Yomo was one of the more important men in Casino's life. Casino was like Lola in that he preferred an endless merry go round of medium term monogamy to my love them for a brief period and forget to mention you're leaving them rollercoaster. Minos was so terrified of getting a girl pregnant that he couldn't even talk to women he found attractive or that, and this I could never understand, found him attractive. Roach was above such things, he'd declared himself asexual at the age of fourteen. I would have loved to know why but the only time he'd got close to telling me I'd had to get him so drunk he'd passed out at the critical moment. If he'd only stayed conscious for another twenty seconds I'd have known.

We'd all liked Yomo at first. He was laugh out loud funny, easy on the eye and didn't ask stupid questions about things that were none of his business. Like why we had a swimming pool full of helicopter parts and five large barrels full of little blue sex pills in the executive suite. He was a dancer in an exclusive club in the Riverside Sector. Sure, we liked him at first. Then he started giving Casino the run around. He was seeing other people when they hadn't agreed that was how things would be. Roach sat Yomo down and gave him the talk. He kept it paternal the first time but the next time he addressed him with more menace, it was to no avail. Casino came home the following week in tears because Yomo had been seeing yet another dancer. Then another. Then another. It went on and on. Then it was goodbye Casino, hello Enterprise Smythe. Yomo decided not to tell Casino this. He thought it would be more appropriate to get Smythe to throw him a birthday party at the club Smythe part-owned and invite Casino so he could spend all night watching Yomo and his new boyfriend getting up close and personal in a club filled to capacity with six hundred clubbers hopped up on little blue sex pills. Casino arrived with arms laden with gifts and birthday wishes and left with ears full of jibes and scornful laughter. It seems that the one thing that really warms the hearts of rich people is other people's public pain. Who would have thought it? We were full of cunning ideas for revenge but Casino wanted to let it go, to move on. We couldn't work out why. Lola was full on for vengeance, Roach was keen to bang some heads together and Minos and I could have destroyed his entire life. Given an hour in front of the right databases we could even fix it so he'd never been born. It was high-risk but would have been worth it. But no, Casino was magnanimous and moved on. It seemed he was just biding his time.

'They shouldn't really live in Queens,' Casino said. 'They commute to the Riverside Sector to work. They're traitors.'

'Well, I don't suppose the Riverside Sector would have them.'

'They have a flat on the crossroads, the one where you go up to that blues club you like,' Casino turned over on to his stomach. 'I slipped in as they came out and spent a couple of hours setting up some surveillance equipment that I borrowed, I borrowed you understand, from Minos. Nothing complicated, just a hidden fixed camera that I could use to record a short film, I couldn't carry anything big, it had to fit in my pockets. Then I waited for them to come home. Oh, I forget to say that before I did that I went to Enforce Headquarters.'

'The main one?'

'Yes.'

'And you got in?'

'Yes, I just walked in behind some officers. I only went to check security and it's really lax. Just a swipe card and a visual check. If they can't see you, you can get in really easily.'

'I guess they don't know to guard against invisible people,' I thought of all the missions we could send an invisible Casino on. I'd always assumed that the headquarters had the same legendary security that the Detention Centre had.

'It was there I got my bright idea. I stole some Factor T45 from this massive warehouse they have. It's like this enormous underground hangar full of equipment.'

'What's Factor T45?'

'It's that stuff they pump sex offenders full of to stop them from having urges.'

'I see.' Sex offenders was a very broad term, and one I didn't approve of. It included pregnant teenagers, prostitutes, people with disabilities and a libido, the list ran on and on. Factor T45 was a chemical sledgehammer to crack the social peanut that was poor people having sex and enjoying it. There were public information campaigns that whipped up such hysteria you would have thought that the city was sinking beneath the weight of rampant sex pests and immoral women corrupting anyone they made eye contact with. As usual the actual problem was ignored so that the Administration classes could continue to attend their friends' hardcore fetish parties without feeling guilty.

'So, pay attention, I took the T45 to Yomo's,' Casino had sensed I had drifted into thoughts of politics and was determined I should not sink into despondency.

'With Minos's camera,' I was paying attention.

'Oh, wait. There was something funny at the warehouse.'

'What?'

'Did you know that Imagination Industries supply Enforce with equipment?'

'Do they?'

'Yeah, all the packaging is stamped with their logo, but not the products. I guess they want to keep that quiet,' Casino said. 'So, I waited for them to get back from work. They almost caught me actually because I fell asleep and didn't wake up until I heard them open the door. So, they came in and poured some drinks and put on some porn. They aren't getting on very well, I'm so sorry to report.'

'Why not?'

'Well, I think Yomo is getting a bit fed up of Smythe's roving eye.'

'You reap what you sow,' I said.

'Exactly. Well funnily, given my plan, Smythe told Yomo that if he wasn't so good in bed he would have left him long ago. So, I poured some T45 in Yomo's drink. And then I put some more in his next drink and then his next and so it carried on until they moved to somewhere more comfortable.'

I grimaced. Casino laughed.

'Poor Yomo, you can imagine his confusion when nothing worked as it should. The funny thing is that T45 doesn't remove your urges, it just prevents the biomechanics from working properly. I didn't realise that. His head still wanted to do it he just couldn't get his body to join in.'

'Then how does it work on women?' I said.

'I guess it doesn't. They just think it does.'

'Do Enforce know that? Maybe Imagination Industries are ripping them off?'

'I don't know. Anyway, the point of my story being that Smythe was furious. I wasn't sure what I'd end up with footage of, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I'd get Yomo pleading with himself to behave. The bit where he begs Smythe to be nice to him because he might be dying is hilarious. You should watch it. I've uploaded it with captions because when he's wailing it's really hard to understand what he's saying.'

'That's what Minos was talking about, he said Yomo was on the DarkNet chart, but I thought he was in some music video or something,' I laughed. 'He said it looked like Yomo but he wasn't entirely sure.'

'It only took off because so many people recognised his tattoo. It's in a pretty intimate spot.'

'And I suppose he's done the dirty on so many people they'd all recognise it.' It was a quite brilliant plan.

'He's always wanted to be famous,' Casino said. 'Now he is. Sometimes you just have to give the people what they want. I think playing it in the club helped. I put it on a loop and password locked it. You see, I have learnt something from you.'

'In Smythe's club?'

'Yeah, eighteen screens over five floors. For hours and hours. Yomo can't leave the flat because everyone starts laughing and impersonating him. There's a certain catchphrase that's very popular but I won't repeat it because I know you have sensitive ears.'

'Revenge is fun,' I said.

'Yes,' Casino said. 'The rest of it though? That's not fun.'

I opened my mouth to say something but thought better of it.

'You know what I think?' he said and didn't wait for me to say that I didn't. 'I think Prophet is insane and he's just sparked something in your mad, twisted imagination and you're running with it.'

'I'm not imagining that you can make yourself invisible,' I said.

'No, but you are imagining the why. There's no point to it, Sorcha. That hospital, the doctors, the waking up here, you know what I think? I think that we're being experimented on. I saw the set up at Enforce headquarters, they've got medical people and scientists working on all sorts of things and some of it works and unlike T45 it works properly.'

'So you think we're guinea pigs for some Enforce trial?'

'And your alternative is more likely?'

'I don't have an alternative. I never said that I did.'

'Then what are you saying?' Casino said.

'I'm not saying anything, we're waiting to see at the moment,' I said. 'We're waiting for something to happen.'

There was a pause.

'I don't want any part of this,' he said. 'I'm sorry I can't help.'

'I didn't ask for your help.'

'You never do,' he said. 'You don't need to. We're like a pack of wolves, one's in we're all in.'

'I don't understand why you're being like this.'

'Because this is insane.'

'At least it's something.' I said.

'Are you that bored, Sorcha? That desperate for something different to do?'

I didn't trust myself to answer.

'This is it for me,' he said. 'I'm out of here tomorrow.'

'Where are you going?' I couldn't believe it.

'I don't know. Anywhere. I can do anything I like now.'

This wasn't right. It couldn't be part of the plan and I was clinging on to the idea that there was a plan. The idea that someone, somewhere had the faintest idea of what was going on. The redhead, I was holding out for her.

'Give me a week,' I said. 'Please.'

He looked at the floor for a very long time.

'As it's you, and only for you,' he said. 'I'll give you three days.'

# Chapter Eight

I had three days to persuade Casino that he wasn't a guinea pig and Enforce weren't going to put him in a cage and stick pins in his eyes. I reasoned that no one would ever think Haggia could be connected to Enforce so she would be my secret weapon. I rounded the troops up and marched them down the street to the shop. If Casino did think that I was on some kind of power trip, what with getting rid of people and leading a wolf pack, then I had failed to prove him wrong on that count. Everyone followed me up the road as though I had them all on a leash. The huge billboard on the way to Haggia's had been changed for the first time in about two years. The Ministry didn't bother updating the adver-ganda in our area, they preferred us to befall hideous diseases and take risks with our personal safety. The new poster was warning of the dangers of Simian Influenza H5M6. We all traipsed into the shop, there was some jostling behind me to see who would get to go in last. Anyone would have thought I was dragging them to a firing squad. They had been dropping hints about meeting Haggia and Marshall and now the hour was upon them they had all had an attack of nerves.

'All right?' I said.

'Morning,' Haggia said from the top of a ladder.

'I brought some people to meet you.'

Haggia looked down from the ceiling at everyone and they all shuffled around and looked at the floor. A pale smoke rose from Minos's hair and I noticed that one of Casino's hands was translucent.

'So, we meet at last,' Haggia said coming down the ladder. 'I've heard lots about you.'

'Have you?' Lola said.

'No, I've heard next to nothing about you, though not for want of trying on my part,' Haggia looked at me. 'Only as much as I needed to put you in touch with Gru, isn't he lovely? He's got his rice, by the way. Tell me everything about yourselves.'

They all stood and looked at her. I'd never seen them so tongue tied, usually we were a mouthy bunch. Not today though.

'Excuse us a minute,' I gathered everyone in a huddle while Haggia stepped down an aisle to give us a moment. 'What's the matter?'

'Nothing,' Minos said.

'Why the shuffling and the silence then?' I said.

'It's weird,' Lola said.

'What is?' I said.

'She knows,' Minos said.

'Yes?' I said.

'It's weird,' Lola said.

I looked at Roach for a translation.

'She thinks we're special,' he said. 'It's weird.'

I turned to Haggia. 'Have you got any chicken?'

'Chicken?' she said from the other side of some shelves.

'Yes, chicken,' I said.

'No, I can't get chicken,' Haggia said.

'Why not?' Lola said, looking around at the fruit and vegetables in wonder. 'Don't you have a licence?'

'I've got a licence for everything,' Haggia wobbled towards us. 'I don't know where to get it from.'

'The sky people,' Roach said. 'They've got hens up there.'

'I don't know them,' Haggia said. 'Are they nice?'

'We can put you in touch with a very nice lady who'll sort you out with a regular supply of chicken,' Minos said. 'She owes us, doesn't she?'

'Yes,' I said. 'She owes us big time.'

'She owes me,' Roach said. 'I pretended to be married to her. For two whole weeks.'

'Really?' Haggia said.

Roach groaned. 'Don't ask. They were the longest weeks of my life. Chicken is a good return though. I like chicken.'

Haggia winked at me suggesting that she thought I would tell her all about it later, but that never works on me, I just don't have the gossip gene. We lapsed into awkward silence again, having proved our usefulness in ordinary situations.

'How's Marshall?' I said.

'Fine, fine,' Haggia said. 'He's popping in later. He has an idea he wants to talk about.'

'What idea?' I said.

'I don't know,' Haggia said. 'He hasn't popped in yet to talk about it.'

'I see,' I said.

I looked at Lola who was always the best of us in uncomfortable social situations which required small talk, but she was concentrating on inspecting the dirt on a potato.

'Tea?' Haggia said.

My wristset beeped to alert me to a call and I answered, grateful for the distraction.

'Blades,' Yum said. 'Job for you.'

'I'm off today,' I said. Everyone was trying to listen in as Yum's voice rasped through the tiny speaker.

'Special request, sorry. I need Casino Flamingo as well,' Yum always said Casino's name in full and with a flourish that suggested he was referring to a great cabaret artiste. I put the volume on the call up so Casino could join in. Everyone listened with studied interest.

'So, special request for Blades,' Yum said. 'Pick up the package from here and then deliver.'

'Why do you need me?' Casino said.

'You both have to go,' Yum said. 'It's a code nineteen package'

A code nineteen package was one that contained very sensitive information, too secretive for security involvement and all its troublesome paperwork. It was covered by all manner of complicated laws and regulations and needed more than one courier to deliver it. The second one had to witness the delivery. But that didn't mean there was always something worth selling or stealing in the delivery. Code nineteen packages were not meant to be carried, they were meant to be cuddled, they were often deliveries of a very personal nature. I once rode a package from the Head of the Academy to the Under Minister of Welfare on a code nineteen. Three weeks later the sender was killed by the person who received the package in an extreme sex session that went very wrong. It was alleged that Packet had been running their bondage gear around the city for months, so I always viewed them with a huge interest.

'I'm off today too,' Casino said, sitting on the sack of rice that seemed a popular perch. 'Get someone else.'

Roach, Minos and Lola looked disgusted. We were supposed to be a team after all.

'Casino, get over it. It's a nineteen,' I said. 'How much is the fee?'

Yum threw a number in the air. It was a big number and it just kind of hung there for a bit. Casino stood up again.

'Terms?' he said.

'Within an hour and a half, the clock's been ticking for twenty minutes already,' Yum said. 'Sorry about that. I needed to go to the toilet.'

We left the other three to talk chicken with Haggia, I was pretty sure she'd get the full story out of Roach. Casino wasn't in a very talkative mood as we ran back to the hotel to pick up our bikes. We were soon on the road, racing to get to Packet.

Casino was a little bit faster over the ground than me but more risk adverse. He never went up on the roofs and avoided the underground. He didn't like to squeeze between things only a breath wider then his bike. That was why I was Packet's top rider and he only just made the top grade. It was also why I had been ticketed for dangerous riding sixty three times more than him and was on a perpetual warning for discipline but I wasn't in it for a pat on the head. This time I was blazing ahead though.

'That's not fair,' he said. 'You're even pedalling backwards.'

'Do you want a lift?'

'Can you?'

It wasn't too hard to move his bike as well as my own. I took us down a back street and over the Markets to the quieter streets where people went to get high in more conventional ways. We looked down on them, huddled around various dealers like bugs round light bulbs. We flew past the third storey windows of stash houses and brothels. I didn't dare go higher in case I dropped him and besides he was already shrieking and squealing like a child being tickled, with a mixture of horror and delight. And for a while, as we swooped and dived like birds through the quiet of the city's secret spaces, it was like being a kid again. The night before and Casino's ultimatum seemed a lifetime away. I didn't want to think about that, and I didn't know why it hurt, but it did. I brought us back down a couple of streets behind Packet's tiny office.

'Can you make yourself fly?' he said. 'Let me take the bike.'

I got of my bike and tried to lift myself into the air. It wouldn't work.

'Pity,' he said.

'I'm not really sure what I can do, I can make tea, and get dressed and stuff.' I didn't mention the bird.

He laughed. 'I guess it's tough to work out what you want to do when you can do anything.'

'Clock's ticking,' I was anxious to avoid revisiting last night's discussion and we rode around the corner old style.

Yum was sitting in his little booth with his headset crammed around his fat head. Yum was so called because it was the word he uttered most often. He had a fat body to go with his fat head. Someone told me his real name was Pinch, but that's a thin man's name if ever I heard one.

'About time,' Yum said even though we'd been about four times faster that we had any right to be in the real world. He tossed a thin package on the narrow counter in front of him.

I picked it up, squeezed it to test for nipple clamps, which was a negative, and read the address out.

'That's the cash on delivery address,' Casino said.

'Yeah, it is,' I looked at Yum with my suspicious face. 'Who gave you this?'

'I don't know, some man,' Yum said. 'This is also payment on delivery. It's off the accounts.'

'Right,' Casino said. It wasn't unusual for a code nineteen to be off the accounts.

'Do you have the docket?' I said.

Yum rooted around under the counter, found a battered clipboard and ripped off a slip of paper that had been defecated upon by his illegible writing. I could just about make out the number 442189. 'He said it was very important and that I had to make sure you delivered it properly with no messing about.'

'I object to the inference that we mess about,' I said.

'Object all you like,' Yum said. 'Time's a-wasting.'

I could usually find redeeming features in people but not in Yum, not even one. I doubted that he could even ride a bike. He would often send people on impossible jobs, like ones where you had to cycle the entire western road in five minutes when it would take an hour in a car on a clear road, with an Enforce escort.

The door was just how I remembered it, hiding away beneath its stone arch. I rang the bell. It was then I realised that I looked a complete state. I was wearing the same clothes that I'd had on the day before. I could feel what my hair was doing and it wasn't concentrating on looking good, that was for sure. A clean face was the best I could hope for. Casino locked our bikes together and leant them against the wall. A green flashing light warned thieves that they would be electrocuted if they touched them, but that was only helpful if they knew what the green light meant, otherwise it would just provide an important lesson for the future.

'Last time she opened the door before I knocked. I was just standing here with my hand in the air. I must have looked very silly,' I was burbling.

Casino grinned. 'I see.'

'Shall I knock?'

'Shall I wait over there so you can have some privacy?'

I pulled a hideous face at him and, with perfect timing, the door opened.

'Hello,' I said. 'Oh.'

It was a man.

Casino patted me on the back in a comforting fashion that didn't please me.

'Yes?' said the man. He was nondescript. Not interesting or attractive in any way at all, a bit of a waste.

'Delivery,' I said in my bored voice.

'Do you have a reference number?'

'442189' I said.

'Come in.'

Casino was impressed by the hallway. I could tell by the intake of breath. It was still like stepping out of time into somewhere very specific you somehow knew but had never visited. Even though I'd been there before it felt new to me, yet it felt very familiar. It was disorientating. We followed the man down the hallway to the library.

'Just a moment,' he said, ushering us inside.

The room was empty, that is to say she wasn't in it.

'Look at these books,' Casino said in wonder. 'I'm going to come back later when I'm invisible.'

'I wouldn't do that,' said the man from the doorway. 'I will still be able to see you.'

We had a standoff of gazes then, which the man, who still wasn't anything exciting to look at, won hands down.

'Where is...' I said.

'Étienne?' said the man.

'Yes,' I said. At least he hadn't said my something or other. My brain refused to process suggestions for suitable terms.

'She apologises but she has been taken away on other business. She will see you again, but probably not here. She has moved on from here for the time being,' he gave me a thin blue card. The fee.

'Thank you,' I said.

He opened the package. Most people checked the package then confirmed payment but he had this trustworthy air about him. There. Something nice about him. Another nice thing about him was that if he was staying here and she wasn't, then they weren't involved. What a nice man.

A disc fell out of the package into his honest, honourable hands. It was stamped with the Imagination Industries logo, just like the other one.

'They provide us with information, as you know. Of a delicate nature.'

'Like what?' Casino said,

'About people playing the games. What their subconscious is saying while they aren't paying attention, what they respond to, what they don't. We do a lot of research.'

'On live people?' Casino said.

'Is that allowed? The data lifting I mean,' I said wishing Casino would shut up.

'It's not strictly according to the letter of the law, no, hence the special delivery,' he smiled. 'And I'm sure Imagination Industries wouldn't like it if they found out but I think you have enough secrets of your own to know how to keep this one.'

'Who do you work for?' Casino said.

'I'm, how shall we say? Freelance,' said the man. 'Like you.'

'I see,' Casino said. 'And your name is?'

'Not for you to know.'

'I'd quite like to know it, if you don't mind,' Casino said.

'Why? You'll never see me again.'

'We'll be going now,' I said. Casino was looking thoughtful in a bad way, in a way that suggested he was connecting up the dots in his head so that they drew a short, straight line between him being invisible and it being this man's fault. At least there was a chance that he'd stop going on about Enforce experimenting on us, so some good would come of the trip. I frogmarched Casino down the hallway. I wanted to know more about what the man, and therefore Étienne, was doing with the data from Imagination Industries but that would have to wait.

'That man has something to do with all this,' he said as I freed our bikes.

'Maybe,' I said.

'You know he does, and Doodle knows something I bet you.'

'Leave Doodle alone,' I said. 'He's got enough problems of his own without you blaming him for yours.'

'Don't tell me what to do,' he said. 'No one put you in charge.'

'No one put me in charge of what?'

'Of anything.'

'I don't think I'm in charge, don't start that again.'

'Enforce,' Casino said under his breath getting on his bike. 'Behind you. Three in a car.' This was more important than arguing.

'How far?'

'A hundred metres. Get on and ride,' he said.

We rode off all business-like down a side street.

'They're following us,' Casino said.

'They can't be,' I said.

'They can hardly fit the car down here, they must be after us the effort they're making,' Casino said. 'Take that left.'

He rode ahead a little and turned in front of me, as I came around the corner I saw his bike pedalling itself down the street ahead of me. It stopped and locked itself to a drainpipe.

'Thanks a lot,' I said. I heard the car pull into the street right behind me. They sounded the siren once.

'I'm not leaving you,' Casino said.

It was Vermina and she had bought Tixylix. The alley was so narrow they had to squeeze out of the car.

'Hello, Sorcha,' Vermina said. 'We've been looking for you.'

Vermina was tall, a kindred spirit in that sense. She had dark curls that were always falling into her bright blue eyes. It made her look like she was plotting mischief of the most delicious kind. The smile helped too, it was a smile that promised things. She must have been at least ten years older than me but you wouldn't have known it by looking at us, in the underclass we took a little more wear and tear.

'Really? Whatever for?' I said.

'We want to ask you some questions,' the beige sidekick said.

'I'm not feeling very talkative,' I said.

'That doesn't matter, that comes later,' Tixylix said.

'Later?'

'Later,' Vermina said. 'We're here to arrest you first.'

'Arrest me? What for?'

'A citizen work placement violation, I'm afraid, not sure exactly what but then I don't need to be,' Vermina said. She showed me a set of cuffs. 'Just your colour I thought.'

I knew for an absolute fact that my work placement records were squeaky clean. I knew that my citizen record was squeaky clean too because I updated it once a week, the day before the system checked it. I was being pulled for something else, something which necessitated a search by senior officials.

'What about my bike?' I said.

'I'll just get that for you,' Tixylix said. 'Wouldn't want anyone to steal it.'

'That's a lot of paper work,' Vermina said.

I couldn't watch as Tixylix put my bike behind the wheels of the car and made the driver reverse over it, then drive forward and then reverse until it was beyond repair. Even Vermina had the grace to look away.

'Assume the position,' Tixylix said.

'You can't search me. You're a man,' I said. 'Just.'

'Oh, all right then,' Vermina said, sounding as bored as she could.

She frisked me in her usual thorough fashion, and once more than was necessary, passing all my technical knick-knacks to Tixylix as she travelled around the inside of my clothes. Tixylix crushed everything beneath his heavy boots and kicked the debris around the street. I hoped Casino was still hovering around somewhere.

'Finished?' I said to Vermina.

'Yes, thank you. You won't need any of that at the Grosvenor,' she said.

I thought I would be going to a local station but at the Grosvenor Casino would have to leave me, along with all hope. The Grosvenor was just an Enforce station, but it was next to the Detention Centre. It meant one thing if they took you there. Casino was my only chance. The man who'd just given me three days before he was going to bail on me. Maybe he was right. I sat in the back of the car in between Tixylix and Vermina as some bicycle-hating grunt drove us at breakneck speed through the city with the sirens screaming. Nobody spoke and I was too busy wondering if I was about to be subjected to an unpleasant medical intervention to make any bright remarks.

The interview room was lit by a single, bare light bulb in the middle of the ceiling and the table was spotted with something that looked like old, brown blood. The walls were solid, not a two way mirror in sight, and there was no recording equipment anywhere. I had been waiting, alone, for an indeterminate amount of time and they had not deigned to take my cuffs off. The door opened and Vermina popped her head round it as though she was attending a visiting relative at home.

'Fancy a tea, coffee, cigarette?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'Tea, milk, two sugars.'

'Sorry honey, we're out of tea.'

'Coffee is fine,' I said.

'None of that either.'

'I bet you don't even smoke anymore,' I said.

'Of course I do,' she said, closing the door behind her. 'This job is very stressful.'

I didn't smoke as a rule but right then I would have done anything to pass the time. She sat opposite me and handed me the pack of cigarettes.

'Do you mind,' I said, holding up my cuffed hands.

The saucy smirk would have been amusing under different circumstances, thrilling even. She handed me a cigarette and lit it.

'I can take it from here,' I said, she was far too close.

She sat back, exhaled a long, smoky breath across the table and pushed a dark curl back to where it belonged. 'May I be honest with you?' she said.

'Do you know how?'

'Funny,' she said. 'Not a time for jokes. Not for you.'

'You think?'

'Yes. I don't know what you've done but you are in a lot of trouble.'

'I am?' I didn't even try to look like I wasn't bothered, she could see straight through me.

'Look, you're a bit cocky, a bit too smart for your own good but you're not fundamentally bad. You seem to have got yourself involved in something that is way out of your league. Way out of it.'

'Like what?' I said.

'If you really don't know, which somehow I doubt, you're about to find out,' she finished her cigarette and ground it under her shoe. 'They'll be here in a minute. Listen carefully and try and buy yourself some time.'

'Why? What's happening?'

I watched her get up and walk out, an answer not forthcoming. One thing was clear to me, this situation was out of control. I was just putting my cigarette out when the door opened and Vermina strode back in. This time she was all business and she was followed by Tixylix and a woman I'd never seen before.

'My name is Rowling,' the woman said. 'You have met these two already.'

The three of them sat opposite me. Rowling had a tablet with her, she scrolled through it.

'Your file,' she said. 'Is very long.'

She spoke in statements. Most Enforce used leading questions to get you to say what they wanted. She was too well dressed to be Enforce. She wasn't government or administration either. They were all like skittish show ponies, this one was tougher than that. Tixylix was gazing at her with huge admiration.

'You are smart enough to know that we haven't got you in here on a work placement code violation,' she said.

Another statement. Vermina was watching me. If I didn't know any better I would have said that she was trying to help me.

'You met this man,' Rowling showed me a picture of Prophet.

I was trying to work out how to handle this so I stayed quiet, waiting for a brainwave.

'And so a time will come to pass when the dark five will emerge from the underground to wage war against the light for the first of the final times. One to speak in tongues, one to cleanse in flame, one to stand beyond sight, one to read beyond the veil and one to move the earth,' she said.

I looked at Vermina. She was the only thing in the room that wasn't spinning just for the briefest moment.

'Have you heard that before?'

A question, not a statement.

Vermina's eyes widened a fraction of a millimetre, it was only just noticeable but I noticed it. What was she trying to say to me? Buy some time. That was it.

'I'm not sure,' I said. It was different.

'You're not sure.'

Statements did not require an answer, that was the game, so I sat tight. Rowling looked old. We just didn't see old people like that anymore. The poor died young and the rich had work done. Her short hair was just the blonde side of white and curled away from her face as though she was facing a strong wind. Her eyes were sunken in a face dominated by sharp, high cheekbones. Her skin was paper thin. She looked near death. At the very least she should have retired like the rest of them. They retired and we worked until we dropped dead, often at work. It was the final insult. Her index finger scrolled back through the tablet again, fingernail tapping like a blind man's cane.

'You are a courier. I imagine it is hard to make ends meet in your, how shall we say, citizen bracket,' Rowling put the tablet down on the table. 'But I think you understand perfectly well the value of information.'

Tixylix smiled to himself. The punch line was on the way.

'This, this prophecy I think they call it, is just another piece of information. Don't you think? Not really a prophecy in the classical sense.'

'I'm not sure,' I said. There was a question there.

'You're not sure of much,' she made eye contact with me at last. It was like a face full of hail. 'Where did you hear this information? Who told you it?'

'You did,' I said.

'I did?'

'Yes, just then, you told me it.'

'That is not true,' she said. 'Why don't you try again?'

'I have heard it before, you're right. I've heard it three times. Is that a significant number?'

Her gaze dropped a few degrees in temperature. Vermina held her breath. Tixylix wasn't smiling anymore.

'Three?' said Rowling.

Vermina glared at me as though I'd made a mistake.

'What's the matter?' I said to her. 'You look tense. You need a holiday. Maybe a trip to a nice island somewhere.'

Vermina turned to Rowling. 'May I?

'Be my guest,' said Rowling, standing up.

Vermina came round to my side of the table and stood me up.

'Can I do it?' said Tixylix.

'Don't be ridiculous,' said Rowling. 'You lack subtly, you'll kill her. Vermina will do it.'

Vermina punched me in the left kidney. I doubled over and her knee met my temple. The other side of my head almost bounced off the edge of the table as soon as it hit it. The last thing I saw in that room was her shoe, its shiny black toe dirtied by a thin string of vomit.

I came round in a white tiled cell in the Detention Centre. I knew I was in the Centre because a helpful sign over the door said 'Welcome to the Detention Centre' in cheerful red letters. They had chosen a font that looked like embroidery. The only sound was someone groaning. That turned out to be me. The cell was empty expect for me and another bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling. I was lying on the floor.

After a while I got to my feet. I had a broad cut across my temple that would need stitches and my back felt like someone had parked car on it. I guessed I would have plenty of time to work out what was going on, the rest of my life perhaps. The Detention Centre was a vast, dark hole that couldn't be crawled out of. The cuffs had gone at least.

After another while I sat down again. I was hungry. I worked out it could be any time between eight hours and a day and a half since I was taken in, maybe two days. I'd heard that at the Detention Centre they sometimes let people starve to death just to free up cell space. My stomach rumbled.

Another while passed. I wonder how many minutes there might be in a while. It was hard to say. I sighed, I had only been conscious for a while and I was already driving myself mad. I lay on the floor again and pretended to be asleep in the hope that after a while I would fool myself and nod off. At least Vermina was kind of on my side, when she wasn't hitting me, as much as Vermina was ever on anyone's side, which wasn't much. I knew it was a bad idea to think about her because they too were the kind of thoughts that could drive you mad but it was those thoughts or ones about my predicament so I went with the distraction of Vermina.

It was years ago, when it was just Minos and me. I was just starting out as a courier, pulling bad dockets for worse money, Minos was working at the Happy Chicken Valley Take Away for real and for minimum wage, but after hours we were making a name for ourselves as hackers, fencers and general fixers. Things were taking off but not fast enough for me, I was in a bar near Loho nursing a single shot of cheap rum and a bad mood.

'Are you drinking that or have you become attached to it?'

There was a woman sitting opposite me in the booth I was hogging all for myself, I sulked better in private. 'What?'

'Don't say what, say pardon, darling,' she said.

'No.'

'Don't be like that, what are you drinking?'

'Rum.'

I watched her walk to the bar with a swagger that just about evaporated my bad mood in an instant, by the time I watched her walk back towards me I was all cheered up. I figured she was some rich number on the pull, looking for a bit of rough and I could play the bit of rough like a professional. But she wasn't like that at all.

'My name's Vermina,' she said. 'What's yours?'

She was indeed upper class, you didn't get vowels or names like that in the NW Sector, but she wasn't looking for anything.

'I'm glad I happened upon you,' she said a month or so later, pulling the duvet around her shoulders in her cold flat. 'You're fun.'

I was fun, lots of fun, but Minos was getting mad at me because I kept disappearing in the middle of jobs. I'd leave patches unfinished, I hacked into a Ministry of Work and Labour contacts list and left the back door open as I snuck out again so they knew how we got in and fixed it. But worst of all, I screwed up the payment for a load of old digital cameras and the seller had come looking for me but found Minos and took all his frustrations out on him instead.

'Can I introduce you to Minos?' I said. 'He's harmless.'

'Sure,' she said. 'I'd like a best friend. It must be nice.'

'I'll be your best friend.'

'You know that would be a demotion, don't you,' she said, starting all over again.

Minos had tidied up for her arrival. We were living in a small three bedroomed place on an estate near an old suburban railway station. We had planned to use it for storage and live somewhere else but somewhere else was proving difficult to find. We couldn't agree on what we wanted, I wanted a view and Minos wanted a garden. I loitered on the main road waiting for her taxi and we walked back to the house together. I opened the door to find Minos leaning against a door frame with a bottle of wine in one hand and a twirling corkscrew in the other. He was a study of nonchalance and I realised he was nervous.

'Hi,' he said.

'This is Minos Fry,' I said. 'Excuse the mess.'

'Come through,' Minos said. 'I've attempted to tidy up but we've got too much stuff and not enough house.'

We walked through the living room to the kitchen where three glasses were standing ready on the table. Vermina looked at all the computer equipment piled up behind the sofa and seemed to take a great interest in the rolls of film stock in the corner. We'd got them from a man in a market who, it turned out, had stolen them from some archive in the Cathedral Quarter. They were worth a fortune and we were waiting to confirm the size of the finder's fee before the authorities would be allowed to have them back.

'Can I have a word?' Vermina said as Minos poured the drinks. 'In private.'

I walked her back through the booty room and she opened the front door and we stood on the doorstep whispering.

'I thought you were a courier,' she said.

'I am, you don't get legs like this driving a tro-tro.'

'Then what's all that? What's Minos into?'

'That's a side line.'

'It is just his sideline, isn't it?' she said.

'No,' I said. 'How much do you think a courier makes?'

'Please don't,' she ran her hands through her hair and groaned. 'Please don't.'

'Please don't what?'

She just shook her head, she had tears in her eyes.

'What?' I said.

She slipped her hand into a pocket inside her jacket and pulled out a small black wallet, the kind that folded in half and held a card or two inside. She showed me the cards inside hers. One said she was an Enforce officer of the third rank with four commendations and the other said she had a licence to carry firearms and to use them to kill. We looked at each other, then I pushed the door open, stepped into the house and shut the door again, me on the inside, her on the outside. I'd assumed she didn't have to work, not with that accent and that address. It could have been beautiful but I hated Enforce, they represented everything wrong with the city, with the world. And Enforce hated me. And Minos. And everyone else I knew. But time passed and I realised I still felt no different to how I'd felt under that duvet, I couldn't hate her, I couldn't even pretend. I guessed you couldn't hate the one, that wasn't how these things worked.

I was woken by the sound of the door unlocking. It was a while later.

'Stand in the corner,' said a man in a blue uniform and dark glasses. 'Put your hands on your head. Whenever this door opens, do it.'

'Facing the corner or facing the room?' I said.

There was a pause. 'Facing the room.'

I did as I was told. Another man in an identical uniform appeared, holding a gun. It was pointed at me. 'Meal time,' the man said, gesturing with his shiny, shiny friend that I should leave the cell.

There was a line of people outside on a metal gantry like a long balcony. I guessed that prisoners would be the word for them, but I wasn't quite ready to accept my incarceration yet. It was a line of people. There were more uniformed people with guns and sunglasses. As far as I could see to my left and right there were cell doors stretching out. Above and below were more floors of corridors. The Centre was enormous.

'Move it,' said the guard who'd opened my door.

We shuffled along the hallway for about ten minutes and then went down some stairs. No one spoke. The bottom of the stairs opened out into a vast room filled with tables and chairs. The line broke up and people surged forward to find a place at a table. Each place was set with a plastic box and each box had the word lunch stencilled on it. So, it was lunchtime, but on what day? I sat down at a table that was a long way from any walls, any walkway and any uniforms. I didn't look at anyone. I kept my head down and looked at my lunch box until a man made an odd snorting noise, like he had something stuck in his nostril. It was a noise I recognised. It was Doodle.

'Sorcha Blades,' he said. 'What are you here for?'

'No idea,' I said.

'Swap with Doodle,' he said to the woman sitting next to me. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. She just got up and swapped with him. You could see she wasn't with us, she given in and closed up. She cried tears of habit.

'Seriously, what for?' Doodle said.

'For a work place violation.'

'Sorcha should not be in Detention Centre for that.'

'Tell me about it. Why are you here?'

'I stabbed an Enforce officer with a chopstick.'

'What?'

'I am safer in here, trust me,' he said. 'Out there, Doodle dead. What have you done to your head? You get the rough treatment?'

An alarm sounded and almost everyone in the room ripped open their boxes in unison. The noise was chilling. The man opposite Doodle was covered in scratches. He ate the plastic wrapping on his sandwich first.

'Yes, very rough. I have to get out of here,' I said.

'Impossible to get out,' Doodle smiled. 'More importantly, impossible to get in.'

He started his lunch. Everything was bright and cheerful and wrapped in crinkly plastic. There was a sandwich, crisps, a non-dairy yoghurt and a carton of generic flavoured juice.

'Sorcha, fare thee well?'

A man on the other side of me who seemed to be a quiet, unassuming gentleman was swept aside and a new, far more assuming gentleman took his place. He was pale from lack of sunlight and his eyes were red and bloodshot. He held his swollen thumbs away from his hands as though they were painful, they twitched every so often.

'Hello, Ginger,' I said.

'Verily,' Ginger said. 'Tis strange indeed to see one as fair as thee here, in this foul establishment.'

Doodle was staring at Ginger with a look of utter incomprehension on his face.

'Doodle, this is Ginger Yates,' I said. 'He's a gamer.'

'Was, my dear child, was,' Ginger said. 'It gives me great sorrow to report that the dark side have captured poor Ginger and plan to put him to the sword.'

'Ginger plays dungeons and dragons games,' I said to Doodle who still looked baffled by Ginger. 'As you can see he's also a blonde so I'm not sure why he's called Ginger.'

'But no longer play I,' Ginger said. 'Reason the first, I ran up a mighty bill which I could not satisfy at the House o' Games and reason the second, I hacked into the mainframe of said House o' Games so I could quench my mighty thirst for the Bane Army.'

'They put you in here for hacking into a game?' I said.

'Verily, 'twas an Administration cipher,' Ginger said. 'And I bargained with some information I had found for my own gains.'

'An Administration what?' Doodle said.

'A diversion where thy evil overlords seek noble questors who will fight the good fight against the nefarious plans they concoct against those in the real world.' When he said real world he made quotation marks with four fingers. Ginger was another one of those gamers.

'Oh dear,' said Doodle, no nearer to getting it. Even if Ginger spoke English, you either got games or you didn't. I got it but didn't play because I knew I'd end up like Ginger, hopefully without the intonation but I'd be in the game all the time. At least in the games things changed, there were events that happened, you could do things to affect the outcome. If someone offered me a game right then I would have played it until I'd beaten it.

'Oh dear indeed, my fine companion,' he leant forward. 'But, mayhap it has not been all unwanted news. I did have an opportunity to play the new game that is on the lips of the wise and noble.'

'What new game?' I said, thinking of Agent Tourniquet.

'The Vanguard, it is named. You must form a bond with other gamers and save the world from certain doom.'

'Oh, that one,' I said. 'Massey's got that one.'

'Do not speak of him,' Ginger said. 'He hath barred me from his establishment for no reason.'

'You do not pay the bill,' I said. 'That mayhap is the reason.'

Ginger laughed, it sounded strange in that room. He raised a juice box in his huge fist, 'I salute you maiden, you are a bright star indeed. Massey has a great game, the best of all games perhaps.'

'Yates,' a man in uniform strode up behind Ginger. 'Rehab.'

Ginger looked up at the man with an expression of great stoicism on his pallid face. 'Very well, dark one. It is the hour.'

The guard rolled his eyes so hard they almost fell out of his head. Ginger followed him through the tables. He walked like he was exhausted.

'How do you know him?' Doodle said. 'You know everybody.'

'I know a certain circle. Our paths cross a lot that's all. Ginger used to work at an office I delivered to on account,' I said. 'He was quite important, or what they think is important. Then he played a game at someone's birthday party and that was it.'

'Well, game over now,' Doodle said. 'I can't believe he dared to call you a maiden. You must be feeling sorry for him to let him get away with that.'

I tried to watch where Ginger was going so I could find him later and ask him about the Vanguard. But Rowling was coming toward me and she had Vermina in tow.

'Doodle, I have to get out of here,' I said.

Doodle looked up to see what I was looking at, then he started screaming. It took four men in uniform to hold him down. Everyone else just stared. Rowling and Vermina waited next to the table while they subdued him, Rowling watching with great interest. Then Vermina put her hand on my shoulder.

'If we could have a word,' she said.

The whole room, which must have held a few thousand people, watched in absolute silence as I left, Rowling on one side, Vermina on the other. It was OK, I had lost my appetite.

Different room, same questions. Same violent end. That Vermina had a wicked left hook.

I worked out from the stencils on the sides of the boxes in the canteen that this went on for four days. After the first two days I got the hang of it and ate as fast as possible so I'd have something to throw up that didn't burn my throat like the bile did. There was no sign of Ginger. I found out that Doodle was in cell 34555 and I was in 34561. They couldn't have known that we knew each other and to keep it that way we stopped talking. I saw him once or twice looking all blank and hollowed out. I didn't get a chance to find out what had freaked him out so much but I assumed it was Rowling. She was starting to freak me out as well. On the fifth day I was back in my cell after lunch. The laborious chorus of the complex lock system started up and then Vermina stood in the doorway holding a large bag.

'Do you need me to stand in the corner?' I said. I still wasn't complying with that one.

'I don't think so,' she said. 'Sit down.'

I sat down.

'This room is totally secure,' she said. 'No surveillance equipment, no eyes or ears anywhere.'

'That's a very comforting thought,' I said. 'Please don't hit me.'

'Most people are less cocky after a few days of questioning,' she sat next to me. 'You would make a great officer, you know.'

I didn't dignify that with a response. She smiled and pulled a first aid kit from the bag. I could see a small padded envelope in it, just like the ones I used to deliver in a life that seems miles away. I felt close to tears.

'Let me sort your head out, it looks gruesome,' her deft fingers ran through the box searching for what she needed.

'I am sorry if it's upsetting you.'

'Some things are necessary, Sorcha, but not pleasant. Imagine what someone else would do to you given the opportunity. I'm trying to do you a favour.'

'I know,' I did know too.

'Does it hurt?'

'Yes.'

'I hope you haven't got an infection or something. How would you describe the pain?'

'Excessive.'

She poured some ointment onto a gauze pad. 'This is going to hurt more,' she said.

Something brought the tears to my eyes but I couldn't promise it was that. I watched through them as she caught her lower lip between her teeth in concentration.

'I'm going to tell you something. If you tell anyone that I've told you this I will kill you. You can tell people what I say, but not that I said it. Do you understand?'

'Yes.'

'I imagine you'll have to tell people anyway. Minos, perhaps, will need to know. Casino, you were with him earlier?'

'I'm not sure he'll care.'

She looked at me, eyebrows raised.

'Casino has probably gone by now,' I could feel the tears running down to my chin.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'They should have patched this up straight away. It might scar.'

'Then I'll look tough,' I said.

'You?' she smiled, her fingers brushing my cheek. 'Not you, darling, sorry.'

I didn't dare breathe in case she moved her hand away but in the end my lungs betrayed me. She went back to peeling butterfly stitches off a small piece of plastic.

'Rowling knows the prophecy because she is working with what you understand as the three,' she said as she laid the stitches over the wound. 'It was unfortunate that you mentioned anything about that but I guess you thought you knew what you were doing. They've known about the prophecy for many years, they've been waiting for it to get out.'

'Who have?'

'I don't know. The three, I imagine. Rowling talks about they and them but that's all.'

'Why is there a prophecy? I don't understand any of this,' I said.

She thought about this, dark curls falling over her eyes again. 'That's just a word that people use to talk about it, I think. They should be calling it propaganda. Or policy.' She began to put everything back in her first aid kit.

'Do they think I'm one of the five?'

'They are starting to. At first they thought you'd accidentally happened upon the information, as you are wont to do,' she smiled at that, but the smile disappeared almost as soon as it had come. 'I don't want to know if you are or not. They are going to try and make you show them what you can do. I'm not sure how they'll do that but you need to get out of here before that happens.'

'I thought no one gets out of here?'

'No one has got out, as yet,' she said standing. 'As yet.'

'Why are you helping me?' I stood too.

'Am I?' she picked up her bag, pushing the package down inside, right to the bottom.

'I wish you would,' I said.

Her heels clicked on the tiles, I never understood how she could walk in those shoes. She rested her hand on the door handle and without turning back to me she said, 'Rowling works for Imagination Industries. She's the Executive Director of Internal Affairs. Corporate Security.' Then she shouted to be let out.

The next two days were quiet. No Vermina, no Rowling. I didn't say a single word to anyone. I was moved from my cell to the canteen to the shower rooms and studied everything with great care. I was determined to get out of there. I watched to see where the guards went, I noted how often they changed. I made every detail seem random and trivial and, true to form, they all lodged in my head, immovable. There was nothing in my cell, Vermina was right about that. I wondered if she would help me get out, but she seemed to have disappeared. They were no doubt off plotting how to get me to reveal my telekinesis. More times than I could remember the long line of prisoners snaked its way back up the stairs and I was locked back in my cell. I lay on the floor and closed my eyes remembering the floor plan I had laid out in my head. They were right. There wasn't even a way out of the area I was in, never mind any of the places that lay between where I was and the world outside. On the third or fourth day I was waiting for the lunch bell to tell me I could open my lunch box when the woman next to me tapped me on the arm with two bandaged fingers. Blood was seeping through the material at the tips.

'Did you hear?' she said. Her breath smelt medicinal.

'No,' I said with an air of finality she didn't pick up on.

'He's back.'

'Who is?'

'The Reaver.'

The bell went and I ripped the top of my lunch box off and tore into my sandwich. 'No, he isn't,' I said through a mouthful of synthetic bread and unidentified sandwich filler. 'He can't be back.'

The Reaver was a serial killer. He was at the height of his powers when me and Minos were seven or eight. We'd spend dark nights huddled around torches with the rest of the flood babies sharing the stories we'd heard about him. They called him the Reaver because he left sympathy messages for the relatives of his victims. He wasn't interested in murder, he was interested in bereavement. They said they he was seeking revenge because all his family were killed in the flood. He killed forty seven people in the Riverside Sector over a two year period. Always using a different method. He was very inventive. They never caught him so we figured he was one of them and they had to let him be.

'He is,' she said. 'He's back and he's killing again. But this time he's killing us.'

'How do you know, did you get a card?'

'No. He's not doing that anymore. He's cutting out tongues.'

'That's not him,' I said. 'He didn't do the same thing twice.'

'He's working for Tulan Haq they say, cleaning up.'

'Maybe it is Haq,' I peeled my orange. It wouldn't taste of anything but plastic so I might as well have eaten the skin. I could see an interrogator striding through the tables and chairs with some uniformed guard in tow. There was no sign of Vermina. I crammed the orange in my mouth.

'They say he wears a golden wig, paid for by the money he steals from his corpses.'

'It's not the Reaver,' I said. 'It's gangsters.'

The woman made a rusty, rattling sound that seemed to be her way of laughing. 'Gangsters, gangsters,' she said. 'They're not gangsters.'

'No?' I watched the guards getting closer.

'They're angels. The Reaver is one of the angels now.'

'I do hope we're not interrupting,' the guard dragged me up by my elbow. The woman pounced on my half eaten lunch. I wanted to ask her how she knew about the tongues and why she was here. But there was no time for that.

Later my door unlocked, I sat up listening to the familiar clunks and rattles. This was different, nothing ever happened after dinner. The door opened and no one came in.

'Hello,' Casino said as he materialised.

I was confused for a moment. 'Has it been less than three days?'

'What can I say? I'm a soft touch,' he smiled.

'Hey,' Roach said. He was wearing a blue uniform, with sunglasses, and holding a bundle in his arms. He pushed the door to, slipping a piece of material into the crack so it wouldn't lock us in. 'Put these on.' The bundle unravelled into a uniform. He put some sunglasses on my face. Casino got dressed as well.

We stood in the corridor, like three guards with not much to do, my civilian clothes locked in my cell. Casino had arranged them so it looked as though I had melted in them. Or been vaporised.

'Doodle's here,' I said.

'We don't have a uniform for him,' Roach said.

'He could have mine,' Casino said. 'But it won't fit him.'

'Or we can just march him out the front door,' I said.

'What cell is he in?' Casino said, leaning over the railing and taking in the thousands of doors.

'34555.'

'Let's go get him,' Roach said.

They opened the door with a thin length of metal shaped into a little hook at the end.

'Minos said the doors are very primitive and it's mostly for show, all that clanking and banging,' Casino said. 'Very evocative. Otherwise they've got some nice kit that he'd love to get his hands on.'

Doodle was standing in the corner of the room, his hands on his head.

'Come on, Doodle,' I said. 'Time to go.'

'Doodle not leaving, no way,' Doodle said. 'Doodle is very happy here.' He didn't look very happy. He looked bruised and battered.

'You killed an Enforce officer, Doodle. You're going to the death chamber,' Casino said. 'It's been on the news.'

'They have not told me that,' he said.

'They don't tell you,' Roach said. 'It's supposed to be a deterrent. There's no point telling you, you've already committed the crime. You can no longer be deterred, you can only be an example.'

'And you are quite the example,' Casino said.

'Come on, Doodle,' I said. 'We can sort this out, I promise.' Once we got him back to the NW sector he could disappear.

'Sorcha Blades promises,' said Doodle as though it were hopeless.

'We all do,' Casino said. 'Now we need to move.'

Casino had the plans of the Centre on a huge piece of paper.

'How quaint,' I said.

'None of our equipment works here,' Roach said. 'We're strictly lo-tech today.'

'Except for these,' Casino pulled three Enforce security passes out of his pocket.

'Where did you get those?' I said.

'Here's a funny story,' Casino said. 'I delivered them to Minos. Yum called me with a job, I picked it up and it was addressed to Minos, care of Greasy Clive's.

'Who sent it?' I said.

'Yum said it was a woman,' Casino said. 'You know how helpful Yum is.'

'What did she look like?'

'He just said she was tall with dark hair,' Casino said.

'Maybe it was the witch,' Roach said.

'I think the witch has red hair,' I said.

Roach put Doodle in handcuffs and we marched him down the long hallway that led down to the ground floor.

'If we see an old woman with fair hair, we're screwed,' I said. 'She'll be wearing a suit. She's very thin, average height.'

'Enforce?' Roach said.

'No,' Doodle said. 'Worse. Much worse.'

There was a security check point up ahead. I kicked Doodle in the shin. He yelled and started to struggle. We picked up our pace. Roach shouted at the guard to let us through, babbling about crimes against the state, Prime Ministerial orders and Tulan Haq's office. We were through. I glanced at the security monitors as we passed, everything was quiet and peaceful. There was no sign of Rowling, Vermina or Tixylix. We marched Doodle down miles of corridors and through seventeen different security points. They were all different, some manned and some automated terminals, but our passes got us through all of them. I was starting to feel tired and the cap Casino had pulled over my bandage was irritating me. Roach led us to a car park full of official cars.

'Now what,' I said.

Roach pulled a key fob from his pocket.

'This came in the magical package as well,' he said.

He activated the keylock and about a hundred metres away a car alerted us to its presence with its horn and its lights. We tried not to run, keeping it nice and tight for the cameras. Doodle went in the back with me, Roach driving with Casino beside him. It was an unmarked car, the type Vermina used, not one of the squad cars. We rolled out of the car park and up the ramp. There were two guards in a booth beside a barrier. We brought the car to a halt on a metal plate in front of them.

'They're scanning it,' Roach said.

We waited.

'OK, clear,' said one of the guards. 'Have a good night.'

As we pulled out into the street, a car that was the same make and model as the one that had been following me, the one that we'd seen at the OP, turned into the car park.

'So, all you need to break out is a pass,' Casino said, turning to me in the back seat.

'That was a lucky break,' I said.

'Very lucky,' he laughed. 'Where can we take you Doodle?'

'Home, please,' Doodle said. 'If it's still there.'

Minos was our eye in the sky, watching the traffic systems to find us an Enforce free route as we drove to see if Doodle's place was indeed still there. It wasn't. It had been squatted by another stall holder at the Jubilee Market. Doodle was not impressed but as the guy said, while he lay on the floor with his hands behind his head, no one gets out of the Detention Centre.

'Now they do,' said Doodle. 'Doodle and his friends break out.'

We had to explain at some length that we weren't real Enforce before he'd get up, but we got there in the end. Doodle would have his digs back in a week and in the meantime we invited him to stay with us.

Minos and Lola were sitting on the reception counter when we got in. They were bickering but only because they were worried, it was sweet. Minos's hair was flickering in bright flames as though he had a head full of matches. They cheered as we came through the door, Lola gave me a hug and Minos shook everyone's hand and then punched me in the shoulder.

'Look, what we've done,' Minos said, dragging me away.

'Calm down, Minos,' Lola said. 'Let her get in.'

'No, show her, show her,' Casino said.

We all tumbled through to the smoking room at the far end of the restaurant, Doodle trailing behind. It was all done out in dark wood and large paintings of historical country scenes.

'It's an incident room,' Minos said. 'Do you love it?'

They had set up a series of monitors and display boards showing pictures and news clippings. Some film footage was rolling on a screen in the corner and a live feed from the local news channel was showing Marshall Dailly. Pictures of the five of us were on the wall. Lola had written the word Vanguard in big letters on a piece of paper and stuck it above our pictures. Prophet was on another wall with Haggia and Dailly. There was a blank square outlined in thick green pen where the witch should have been. They'd included everything. Even things that didn't seem to be relevant.

'You lot are crazy,' Doodle said.

'Do you love it?' Minos said.

'I love it,' I said.

'So, a quick summary,' Lola said. 'This is control central. You are not in any code violation so we figured that no matter how much we might not like it, two and two do in fact equal four.'

'I'm sorry,' Casino said. 'I have been a little bit irritating.'

'So, you need to tell us everything you've found out inside, and you Doodle,' Minos said.

Lola frowned. 'I think first they will be having baths, dinners and rests, Minos. This can wait.'

'Tixylix broke my bike,' I said as Roach escorted me up the stairs.

'Oh,' Roach stopped on the top step. 'Are you OK?'

'Vermina just stood there,' I said. 'I may never forgive her.' I touched the bandage on my head.

He peeled back the bandage and inspected my wound. 'At least whoever patched you up did a good job,'

'Did they?'

'Yes, great care and attention taken,' he smiled. 'Forgiveness is divine, you know.'

And then, after escaping all that pretty much unscathed, I almost drowned myself by falling asleep in the bath.

# Chapter Nine

Much like the time we made a killing on a set of synthetic retinas that would open a digital vault in a Ministry deposit house, we were back in business. The incident room may have been one of Minos's more outlandish ideas, but with that, Casino back on form and Lola's red rubber band working wonders it was almost like old times. I slept in, so we had to postpone Minos's summit meeting until late afternoon, when I presented myself to an incident room buzzing with activity. Doodle was sitting at the end of a long table looking morose.

'Have you had something to eat?' I said to him.

'Not hungry,' he said.

'Well, I am. Why don't you come and keep me company?'

'If you want,' he said. 'These people are all insane anyway.'

'Where are you going? We need to...' Minos trailed off after a significant look from Lola.

I took Doodle to the kitchen where I put on some coffee. I did it all like a regular person so as not to push him over the edge. He looked like he was clinging on with his fingertips.

'Coffee?'

'Yes, please,' he said. 'Black.'

I put the mug down in front of him and sat opposite. 'What's the story, Doodle? What's going on?'

'Big trouble.'

'How come? You gave them the cash, right?'

'Oh yes, I give them all the cash but they're not happy. They say that Doodle knows too much now and some people are looking for me.'

'What people?' I wanted to be wrong but I knew already.

'This gang.'

'Who?' I knew that too.

'The gang. There's only one. They all look the same. Very tall with golden hair, like old coins.'

Doodle was going to get his tongue cut out. And that was the best case scenario. 'What did you do?' I said.

'I am not telling you that, Sorcha Blades. You do not need to know, it will be bad if you do.'

'What about Rowling? I said.

'Who?'

'The woman at the Detention Centre. The old one,' I said.

'So that's her name. She knows them,' he sipped at the hot coffee. It was good coffee from the Latin States. It even smelt like it was wide awake. 'She says Doodle is going to die. I didn't know she would turn up in Detention Centre.'

'No, I guess you didn't,' I thought about Doodle stabbing an Enforce officer and just giving himself up. That was some length to go to.

'How she does know Sorcha Blades?' said Doodle.

'That, Doodle, is a very good question.'

'I must go,' he said. 'Doodle making things dangerous for you and you have been very kind.'

'You can stay a while, you know, if you want,' I said.

There was a long pause. 'I don't want,' he said. 'I want to be alone.'

I let him out the back way. He trudged down the path and climbed over the gate. I was almost glad he was gone, as bad as I felt for him. He was like a clock ticking down to the end of time. Doomsday Doodle.

'Minos is going to have a conniption if you don't come on,' Casino said, poking his head round the door. 'Or I'm going to kill him. One of the two.'

We assembled in the incident room. Minos had put a big ball of string on the table and had already started winding bits of it round pins on the boards to show how things were connected.

'Where's Lola?' I said.

'She's gone to see Stark,' Roach said. 'We figured that this started after that party and he give us the invitations. So she's gone to get his confession.'

'She's not going to tell him about everything?' I said.

'No, she's under strict instructions not to tell him anything and not to use anything other than her feminine wiles,' Roach said. 'So as not to cause suspicion. He'll tell her everything in a second, you know what he's like.'

'I've called us all here today,' Minos said, glaring at us. 'To see what you found out, Sorcha, in the Detention Centre.'

'Doodle just told me something interesting,' I said.

Minos sat down in defeat.

'The gangsters with the golden hair that we saw at the black market,' I said. 'They're the people Doodle owed the cash to. He wouldn't tell me why, but there's a woman at the Detention Centre, Rowling, who seems pretty tight with them.'

'Rowling,' Casino said, leaping up much to Minos's delight and pointing at a picture on a monitor. 'We found her earlier. She's some kind of Enforce consultant, black coded.'

Black coded meant she was authorised to operate off the grid, so Enforce would not know if she was working with the gangsters.

'So, she's pretty high up then,' Roach said.

'She works for Imagination Industries,' I said. 'She's not actually Enforce.'

'How do you know she's Imagination Industries?' Casino said.

'All the stuff in the warehouse, remember,' I said. 'It's obvious.'

'How is that obvious?' Casino looked suspicious.

'It's not obvious,' Roach said. 'But if you're sure?'

'I am,' I was not giving up my source.

'OK, OK,' Minos typed it up with two fingers. 'We'll get back to that. What did they want at the Detention Centre?'

'This Rowling knew the prophecy and she wanted to know how I knew it. Her version was a little bit different though. Anyway, she seemed pretty certain that I knew it,' I said. 'Didn't even bother with the if, just wanted the how.'

'Did you tell them?' Casino said.

I gave him a look of disdain.

'Of course, she didn't,' Minos said. 'Go on.'

'Well, that was all they wanted to know. I thought there must be a leak, but then Vermina said that they thought I was one of the five.'

'Vermina said?' Casino said.

'Yes. Vermina said that they were starting to think that I was one of the five and that they were going to try and prove I had fire, or tongues or one of the others.'

'She tipped you off?' Casino said.

'Yes.'

'When?' Roach said.

'She came into my cell to patch my head up and she told me then.'

'We need to get Vermina connected up on the wall,' Minos said.

'There's not much else,' I said. 'I don't think they know very much but they're trying to find the five.'

'What did you tell Doodle?' Roach said.

'Nothing.'

'I've had an interesting thought,' Minos said, looking up from his computer. 'Who did Yum say delivered the passes for the Detention Centre?'

'He just said it was some woman,' Casino said.

'Was it this one, do you think?' Minos moved aside. Vermina stared out from the screen.

'Yes,' Casino said. 'I rather think it was. But you already guessed that, didn't you?'

I shrugged and then, for good measure, gave a small disinterested grunt. Even though I'd realised I could have told him what the package looked like because I'd seen it in her bag, a small padded envelope along with the first aid kit.

We debated and ruminated all morning. We had more questions than answers. We tried to organise them into sensible enquires that we could take to Haggia and Marshall but it was like trying to unravel a ball of yarn while wearing woolly mittens. We were interrupted when all our wristsets went off at the same time. It was Lola. We had been summoned to Stark's house.

'Since when have we got a van,' I said, climbing into the back of one in the garage under the hotel.

'It came in on the boat a few Tuesdays ago,' Minos said. 'Took a while to fit up.'

'A few Tuesdays?' I said. 'Come on, I think I would have noticed a van.'

'You've been away for over a month,' Casino said.

'A month? What day is it today?'

'Friday,' Casino said.

'I thought it was Monday,' I said. 'A couple of Mondays ago.'

'Let's not think about that now,' Roach said. 'We need to get down to Stark's.'

The van was a standard transit size. It was grey, with blacked-out windows and fake badges. It was hooked up to the hotel thanks to the equipment in the back. Minos had also installed a mini bar and a massive security system. Anyone so much as looking at the van funny wouldn't walk straight for a week and would turn their back on a life of vehicle crime. Once the mobility in their hips returned. Stark lived in the Garden Suburbs like many of the Academy members, it was all achingly elegant and skirted the Academy Quarter so it was also achingly convenient. He had a very grand house hidden behind a minimalist facade of grey slate and smoked glass. We parked up and called Lola.

'Can't you just ring the doorbell like normal people?' she said.

'This is fair warning,' Minos said. 'We wouldn't want to interrupt.'

We rang the doorbell like normal people. Stark opened the door. He was wearing a silk robe held closed with a thick cord tied at the waist in a jaunty bow. He couldn't have made it more obvious that he just got out of bed if he'd been attached to the pillow. Minos shuddered.

'Hello, Stark,' I said. 'How are you?'

'Hello beautiful,' he said, kissing me on both cheeks like a New Europan. 'Nice to have you back.'

'She's filled you in then?' Minos ducked behind me in case he got the New Europan greeting as well.

'On a need to know basis I expect,' Stark smiled. 'You know Lola.'

We all agreed that we did know Lola as we were led to his studio. Stark's house was very secretive. All the cupboards were hidden and Stark would walk round pressing random walls in growing irritation whenever he was looking for something. Lola assured me there weren't any secret passages, which was disappointing. The whole place was open plan, with artful columns placed for occasional privacy, except for the bathroom and the studio which was shut away at the back. Stark's studio was a large glass box. You could see right across the northern side of the city from there.

'Take your time, people, do,' Lola said. She was sitting in a deck chair wearing the hers part of Stark's robe set.

'Let me look at your head, Sorcha,' Stark said.

'It's fine,' I said, lifting up my hair so he could see.

'Stark has left the Academy,' Lola said, bursting to drop the bombshell.

We all looked at him in stunned silence. This was news indeed.

'That's right,' said Stark. 'Me and almost everyone else.'

'How come?' Roach said.

'Oh, it's been a long time coming. Rhone's announcement was the death knell if you ask me but we'd all seen it coming,' said Stark.

Chichester Rhone was the Prime Minister, the sixth in five years. People weren't voted into that particular office anymore, they were pushed through the door holding a short straw.

'What announcement?' I was out of the loop and not alone it seemed.

'The Arts Academy is closing. Well, not closing exactly but changing. This group have taken over the committee and brought in all these new regulations. And frankly some of them are just not on.'

'Like what?'

'Well, some of them are a little, I don't know, religious.'

'Religious?' I said.

'Religious,' Lola said. 'Isn't that odd?'

Religious faith was not banned in any official sense, but it was acknowledged as a universal truth that there was no place for it in our forward thinking and modern society. It caused too many problems. The mass practising of religion was forbidden. You could pray in your own home, you could wear robes, symbols or anything you may deem necessary, but the moment there was anything organised about it, it was crushed. And the funny thing was that was how people seemed to want it, more people informed on organised faith practise violations than any other crime.

'Iconography synonymous with faith, they would say,' said Stark. 'But ultimately, it's religious.'

'Which one?' Roach said.

'A new one,' said Stark. 'It has overtones gathered from the old ones but it's new. But don't call it a cult whatever you do.'

Stark had grey hair cropped very close to his head. He was in his fifties but he looked lean and fit and like he hadn't had much work done. Maybe just an eye lift. I could see why Lola liked him. He projected an aura of security and confidence. He made you feel like nothing was going to go wrong and even if it did he would be able to handle it just fine. He looked quite baffled at that moment though.

'A new one?' Minos said. 'They can't just invent a religion.'

'Why not?' I said.

'Because it's...no, you're right, of course they can,' he said. 'Silly me.'

'So, you're now supposed to make art based on these new regulations?' Casino said.

'Yes, but they're so rigid. Art shouldn't be a mechanism for wielding power. It's horrible. There are a set number of narrative forms and people have to have certain physical characteristics.'

'Like what?' I said.

'Let me show you,' Stark said. 'Lola thought you might be interested in seeing this.'

As Stark went into the other room, I caught Lola's eye and looked at her wrist band. She didn't catch on straight away but we got there in the end.

'Does he know about what we can do?' I thought over and over.

Lola shook her head.

'Put that back on your wrist,' I said in a strict tone of thought.

She smiled and put it back on.

'Look at this,' Stark held up a painting. It was about a metre and a half wide and a metre tall in its gilded frame. It looked old and expensive. It showed a group of people at a kind of garden party in some symbolic, heavenly realm. There was an altar and some statues stood around, everything was laden with flowers. People lounged about, fleshy and nude, swigging from goblets and dropping grapes into their mouths. Despite this decadent and hedonistic setting the painting managed to be quite austere and threatening. This was perhaps because around the edge of the central group were six slim figures with golden hair.

'Who are they?' Roach said.

'The Galearii, I think they're called, here hold this,' Stark almost gave the painting to Minos but remembered just in time what a bad idea that would be and gave it to Roach instead. He found a hidden bookcase and pulled out a heavy tome. He leafed through it. 'Yes, here. Galearii. Army servants.'

'We've seen some of these Galearii,' Roach said.

'What?' Stark said.

'We've seen them,' Lola said.

'Where?'

'At the OP,' Roach said.

'Are you sure it's them?' Minos said.

'Yes,' I said.

'Well, I think we should get a copy of this picture so that we can make sure, don't you?' he said.

'Good idea,' Roach said.

'Yes,' I caught on. 'We might be mistaken. Best to be sure.'

'Are they in the group that's taken over?' Lola said.

'I don't know,' Stark said. 'I haven't seen them. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone actually has.'

Stark helped Minos capture the relevant pages in the book then insisted on making us lunch, which is to say that he insisted on his assistant making us lunch. The poor boy looked furious about it but Stark told him it would make a change from cleaning paint brushes. Stark worked in oils so didn't use paint brushes but we got our lunch and that was the main thing. Stark sold his work to the Ministry of the Environs and Conurbations. They were in charge of cleaning up the environmental mess we found ourselves in, and also housing but their first responsibility took up so much time they didn't bother with anything else. Hence all the squatting. Besides there wasn't any way to get any credit from housing, so why bother? The person who eased our environmental woes would be minted.

'Now what happens?' Minos said through a mouthful of food. 'Without the Academy?'

'I don't know,' Stark passed him a napkin. 'They're all going the same way though. Whoever bought up the Arts one has also got the Education Academy and the Academy of Medicine and the Sciences. I dread to think what they'll do to them. At least most of our stuff is just to hang on the wall and look pretty, no matter what Tourniquet and his lot might say.'

'Tourniquet?' I said.

'Yes, we went to his show a while back,' Lola said. 'It was enormous fun. With all the teeth.'

'Yes, I'm sorry about that,' said Stark. 'I was told it would be good.'

'Hang on, hang on,' Minos pointed at me. 'Track back here. You said that in a weird way.'

'I didn't,' I said.

'Yes, you did,' Minos said. 'Tourniquet, you said. In that way you do.'

'In what way?'

'In that way you do when you are preparing to tell a lie,' Minos said.

'All right, I give up,' I said. 'I met him in Greasy Clive's the other day. He was looking for me and got Clive to tip him off when I got there. It was all very annoying.'

'And you thought it would be all right if you didn't mention this?' there went Lola's temper.

'I've been in the Detention Centre ever since,' I said.

'And I suppose that's a coincidence,' Minos said. 'What does he look like anyway? I can't remember seeing him at the party.'

'I can,' Lola said.

'Me too,' Casino said. 'Beautiful.'

'Wait, a minute,' said Stark. 'Let me get his picture.'

'You should have said something,' Casino said. 'I could have come along.'

'This might have been important,' Minos said. 'We went to his party and then we had the...'

'Never mind that now,' Lola said to shut up him before Stark came back and heard something he shouldn't.

'If it had been important then I would have mentioned it. He just went on about this game he was playing.' I would have to tell them about that later. I realised I had been keeping my mouth shut, they were right.

'Look, here he is,' said Stark, holding up a picture on his tablet. 'Handsome fellow, isn't it?'

'That's him,' I said.

'You do pick them, Sorcha,' Lola said.

It was a very good picture. He looked like some kind of idol.

'I didn't pick him.'

'Well, I can't say I'm surprised you've caught his eye,' Stark said. 'He has an eye for the unusual yet beautiful.'

'Our Sorcha is a bit of magnet for those with unusual tastes,' Casino laughed.

'Oh, don't be cross, darling,' Stark said. 'I think it's a good thing.'

'It isn't,' I felt my face was burning with embarrassment. 'Besides, he's a gamer, I don't like those.'

Even Roach and Minos, from whom I expected better were laughing.

'Now, leave her alone,' said Stark. 'It's only funny because you're so horrified.'

'Don't tell Vermina,' Casino said. 'She'll be furious.'

'Vermina?' Lola said.

I pushed Casino off his chair to save him from killing himself laughing, but it felt pretty good for us all to be laughing, even if it was at my expense.

'Well, I don't suppose next time you see him you could ask him where he gets his body parts from,' said Stark. 'I'm very curious.'

'I'm not going to see him again,' I said. 'And he probably gets them in the Project or from Harlestone.'

'Do you know anything else about him, Stark?' Minos said.

'He sells to the cabinet so he's black coded,' Stark said. 'I don't really know him. He's very mysterious, he's supposed to be friends with Chichester Rhone though. That's how he's got to the top, it's certainly not because he makes good work.'

'Is Tourniquet an advisor to the cabinet?' I said. That would put him on the payroll and therefore in someone's pocket.

'No, he's new on the scene, he just appeared out of nowhere,' Stark said. 'It would be very suspicious if that happened.'

'Well,' Minos said. 'It's good to know that the government are involved in this somehow.'

'My dear boy,' Stark said. 'They're always involved somehow.'

While Lola went to get dressed, Roach, Minos and Casino made a serious dent in Stark's supply of expensive brandy. He had sent his assistant off on some errand so enlisted me to help him clear the table. It was a pretext.

'I didn't mean to embarrass you earlier,' he said as we piled dirty plates up in the kitchen for his beleaguered assistant.

'It's OK, I wasn't embarrassed,' I felt myself going red again.

'I taught your Vermina, you know. It's the same woman, she was in her first year at the University. I don't know why she joined Enforce, she was always so....'

'Always so what?'

'There isn't a word for her,' he smiled. 'Nor for you.'

'Is there a word for Lola?'

'There's a whole volume of dictionaries for that one,' his smiled broadened. 'Ah, she's going to make a terrible fool of me one day.'

'Well, we're all rooting for you,' I wondered how he'd respond to hearing all about how she could read his mind.

'And I'm rooting for you, in whatever you do,' his smile disappeared. 'I spoke to Agent Tourniquet the other day.'

'Stark, I'm not...'

He held his hand up as an interruption. 'I know, I know, you think you're not interested. Not much anyway. He was talking about someone he had his eye on, and he was definitely talking about you, even though he didn't seem to know your name then. I didn't tell him what it was, by the way.'

'How come he was talking about me?' I said. 'How did I come up in conversation?'

'He was thanking me for inviting you to his party,' Stark said. 'I don't know how he knew I had, but he didn't seem to mind.'

'I think I'll stay away from Agent Tourniquet,' I said. 'He seems to have hidden depths and I don't like that in a person.'

'Yes, do stay away from him,' Stark said. 'Try and be sensible.'

'I am sensible,' I thought of sensible me, bless her.

'You are many things, but sensible is not one of them,' Stark tossed some cutlery into the sink, splashing water up the tiles behind. 'Try using that head you've got instead of your heart. It's smarter.'

'It's not,' I said. 'You'd be surprised.'

Stark laughed and I was saved from hearing why that might be amusing by Lola arriving, fully-clothed.

'Shall we make a move?' she said.

'Oh, have another drink,' said Stark. 'They may as well finish the bottle.

They already had but Stark, keen to settle into his life of leisure, opened another one. It was very good brandy, a gift from the Ministry of Culture and Endeavour. They'd even given him a set of six brandy glasses to drink it from. Even I could hold my drink better than Stark and he was soon pontificating at length about politics and his woes.

'I blame the Ministry of Security,' he said. 'And that Tulan Haq. He's not a minister. He's a menace.'

'He is,' Minos said. 'A menace, isn't he?'

'A menace,' Casino said.

'Why?' Roach said. 'Why blame him?'

'You know what he ought to do?' Stark said.

'What?' Lola said.

'He ought to stop interfering with Academies and stop telling us what we can and can't do with our oils and our clay and our stolen body parts. He ought to sort out that Imagination Industries mob. They're the real issue here.'

'Why are they?' I said, finding myself the most sober for perhaps the first time ever.

'For a start they're into everything, Ministries, Enforce, they're supplying them with information and equipment and worst of all funding.'

'Funding for what?' I said.

'I don't know,' Stark said. 'They're the only people with any financial muscle though. And where did they get it from?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'Where did they get it from?'

'I don't know,' Stark said. 'Where did they get it from?'

Casino giggled.

'But what I do know,' Stark said, rallying. 'Is that this gaming racket they've got going on is going to end in disaster. All this recruitment and surveillance, it's creepy is what it is. Delving around in people's unconscious minds like that, it's not right.'

'Why is everyone going on about games?' I said, more to myself than anyone else.

'Are they?' Roach said.

'Yes, Tourniquet was talking about them, Ginger Yates was in the Detention Centre and he was going on about them.'

'He would be,' Minos said.

'Yeah but...' I said.

'But what?' Roach said. Everyone seemed to have sobered up, except Stark who was shaking his head at his glass.

'There's a game,' I said. 'With a prophecy and I've got a cheat code.'

'My goodness,' Lola said as everyone leapt to their feet, except Stark who was out of the loop again. 'Is that the time?'

'Yes, we have to go and do that thing,' Minos said.

'Very important thing,' Roach said.

'Bye,' Casino said, giving Stark a fond New Europan farewell on either cheek. 'Thanks for lunch.'

'I'll be in touch, gorgeous,' Lola said.

'Imagination Industries,' Stark said as we ran out the door. 'It's like calling an abattoir a zoo.'

The Entertainment Centre and the Detention Centre both had the same purpose, to act as a sedative on a restless population. The fear of the Detention Centre was supposed to keep everyone from committing crimes and the delights of the Entertainment Centre were meant to occupy everyone's minds to keep them from noticing that the deterrent didn't really work. The plastic dolls that is. They called it the Ents and outside the main shifts of the sixty hour working week the Ents was packed. The rest of the time it was just very, very busy. The gaming house was huge, taking up almost all of a building that used to be a huge shopping centre, the flagship kind.

We knew a woman on the inside, of course, that was how we got the programmes to Massey. I wondered if she was the source of Étienne's data, Clara Ten Below was into everything. Except human contact of any kind, hence the name. The woman was cold as ice.

'You do the talking,' Minos said. 'She likes you.'

'Don't start that again,' I said.

Clara was arguing with a man in a cheap suit about how many minutes there were in an hour and how many hours there were in twenty credits. Not as many as there were last week it seemed.

'Problem?' Roach said, rubbing the knuckles of one fist with the palm of his other hand as the man looked up at him and then backed off.

'I was handling that,' Clara Ten Below said.

'No doubt,' Roach said. 'But we don't like to queue.'

'I've got nothing for you,' Clara said to me.

'You might have,' I said. 'I need to look at some live code.'

'I can't do that,' Clara said.'

'Yeah, you can,' Minos said. 'We won't leave any trace, we just need access to one server.'

'It's protected,' Clara said.

'By what?' Casino said.

'Sentinel Five,' Clara sounded embarrassed, and so she should.

'For a moment there I thought we were going to have trouble getting in,' I said. 'It's like system administration have written us an invitation.'

Sentinel Five was another wonder of bespoke programming commissioned by people who knew nothing about anything and couldn't tell if something worked or not. The day Imagination Industries realised and fixed it would be a sad one. Clara Ten Below insisted that only Minos and I could go with her and that everyone else had to wait in reception, so the two of us followed her through the terminals. Unlike Massey's set up where you lay down so he could pack more gamers into a small space, here people were hanging upright inside cylinders of pale green glass with the expiry dates of their slot counting down on the outside, along with a vital signs monitor so the technicians could check nobody was about to die. It had been known. The cases were clustered inside the shop units that had been stripped of shelves and stock. The further we got into the heart of the operation, the further off the expiry dates were and the more elaborate the equipment became. Massey had strict time limits on his games but we walked passed a man who would be in the game for another two years. He was fed through thin plastic tubes and inside his glass pod I could see his limbs cycling through some movements, prompted by the electromagnetic impulses being sent to his muscles through red and blue cables. There were thousands of them, just like him, all plugged straight into the hive mind of the Administration, a wealth of research evidence hanging there like fruit waiting to be picked.

'Which game do you want?' Clara punched in the security code next to an important looking door, hiding her fingers from us so we couldn't see what she was doing.

'The Vanguard,' I said.

Minos let out a long, low whistle.

'You and the rest of the world. Down here,' Clara led us through rows of banked servers. They gave off a quiet hum and a soft heat.

Minos produced a cable from one of his many deep pockets and plugged his tablet into one of the ports Clara had pointed us to. She hovered around behind me making sure we didn't break anything, as if we would.

'Is that it?' I said after a couple of minutes.

'What?' Clara said.

'It's not finished, it's growing,' Minos let out another one of his long whistles.

'Yeah, it's all open ended,' Clara said. 'It's user shaped. The version control is insane. I've never seen anything like it.'

'Try the code,' I said to Minos and, making a huge show of secrecy to little miss security pants, I whispered it in his ear.

Nothing happened. We waited but still nothing happened.

'Excellent,' I said. 'Thanks Clara.'

'Find you own way back,' Clara said. 'I've got some diagnostics to run.'

We left her in her lair to check up on us, no doubt. She wouldn't find anything.

'This place gives me the creeps,' I said.

'Me too,' Minos said. 'If I ever start playing the games I want you to tie me down and get Roach to hit me until I see the error of my ways.'

'It might be fun for the government to see what goes on in your head,' I said. 'They'd pass laws and everything.'

'It's not the government I'm worried about, they wouldn't know what to do with the contents of my brain. It's Imagination Industries that worries me.'

'Someone's watching them,' I said.

'Who?'

'The same people that are watching us.'

'Well. That is a comfort.'

We walked passed a short cylinder with a few minutes left on its countdown display. I stopped and Minos bumped into me. Haggia's fingers were twitching inside thin mesh gloves, her hands in overdrive.

'Look,' I said.

'It's the woman from the shop,' Minos said. 'What was her name?'

'Haggia.'

'That's it. She seemed all right, what's she doing in there?'

'You two can't loiter round here all day,' Clara came up behind us.

'Does she come here often?' Minos tapped on Haggia's pod.

'This one?' Clara looked disgusted. 'Addict. Seriously, she's on every day, sometimes twice.'

'What's she playing,' I said. 'The Vanguard?'

'Yeah, but she's playing the test version. The beta was out a year ago and she was in the test cohort but she won't switch. She's got some sort of dispensation to carry on playing it, some weird licence thing I've never seen before. Why she would want to, I don't know. She's not hooked into the master so she can't do anything. Pointless.'

'What's she hooked up to then?' I said.

'I don't know. It's not us, it's outsourced, that's why she needs a licence,' Clara shrugged. 'Now get out or I'll have to call security.'

Thunder crashed around us as we stood on the steps of the Entertainment Centre. The sky was a sulphurous yellow, like the rain.

'Does this mean one of us is going to have to play the game?' Casino said as we arrived at another dead end in our investigation.

'I hope not,' Minos said.

'I think Haggia is playing it for us,' I said.

Across the square that stood between the Entertainment Centre and the mangled turmoil of the various roads that met in the junction opposite, I watched a familiar figure get out of a taxi. He opened a black umbrella, turned up his collar and hurried towards us. I ushered everyone down the steps away from him. Agent Tourniquet took the steps two at a time and went into the door we'd just been standing in front of. That liar. He said he didn't play with the plastic dolls.

# Chapter Ten

Casino was not one of life's volunteers, so when I said I was going to see Marshall Dailly and wondered if anyone wanted to come with me, I was very surprised when he bounded across the room to join me. Everyone else grunted and carried on with what they were doing, apart from Minos who offered the legitimate excuse of having to go to work at any minute. We watched the live feed of the local news to work out where Marshall was and discovered that he was a short walk away, reporting from the burnt out shell of a warehouse.

'We don't keep stuff there anymore, right?' Casino said.

A surveillance drone flew overhead as we strolled along and it was soon joined by a huge helicopter that hovered low in the sky for an age, like a great big bee. The sky looked like it was thinking about raining down something unpleasant on everyone. When we arrived at the warehouse Marshall was sitting on the rear bumper of a van with an NWTV-24 decal peeling off the side. I got the impression that Marshall, despite being on the screen more than any other reporter, was not very high up the food chain. He was looking miserable, moving small pieces of rubble and charred wood around with his toe. Our appearance seemed to cheer him up though.

'What are you doing here?' Marshall said.

'We need to talk,' I said.

'That sounds ominous,' he said.

'Yes, that was her ominous voice,' Casino said.

'I've got twenty minutes or so before we're back on,' Marshall said. 'I just have to say the same thing I said before, and before that.'

'Sounds exciting,' Casino said. 'Why can't they just use the recorded footage?'

'Because it's supposed to be live,' Marshall said. 'It's not a bad story, but no one will talk. Which is funny because usually people are falling over themselves to tell their story.'

'What's the story?' I said.

'Rum,' Marshall said. 'Let's go over here.'

There was a woman listening to our conversation. She was winding a cable round and round her mighty forearm and watching us with an expression on her face that suggested she wasn't looking to be friends. We walked over to a low wall that was taking a break from falling over. We sat down and the woman was still staring at us.

'What's her problem?' Casino said.

'Chronic flatulence mainly,' Marshall said. 'Where's your bike? I thought you were glued to it?'

'It broke,' Casino said. 'Touchy subject. She doesn't like to talk about it.'

'So, rum?' I said.

'Yeah, there's a lot of rum on the market apparently. Good stuff too, but not licensed so not taxed. The Ministry of Securities is leaning on the Ministry of Welfare to sort it out.'

'Why? It's just a little rum,' Casino said.

'It's quite a lot actually and if you mix it with that homebrew made out of turnips you can blow things up,' Marshall said.

'It's the radish stuff you mix it with, that's lethal,' I said, thinking of the toilet in Minos's second bathroom and how impressive the explosion was. There were still chunks of ceramic embedded in the ceiling.

'Could be. Anyway, that's not the real story, of course, but that's what I've got to report,' Marshall said.

'What is the real story?' I said.

'I think the real story is about how the forcing people to produce and drink homebrew is having a massive impact on people's health and the only reason the government and administrators are getting involved, other than the tax issue, is because the consignment was due to go to Tulan Haq. We can't have the citizens drinking the good stuff. Not when no one's producing it anymore.'

'And they won't let you report that,' Casino said.

'The big old meanies,' I said.

'I'd love to know who's selling it,' Marshall said.

'I hear sometimes they're giving it away,' I said.

'They're nice like that,' Casino said.

'Do you know who it is?' Marshall said.

How did you get involved in all this?' I said before Casino could open his mouth.

'In what?'

'Involved with us,' Casino said.

Marshall looked a little baffled at the sudden change in subject. Too baffled to lie straight off.

'Do you play at the gaming houses?' I said.

'No, I hate those games,' Marshall said. 'Mass mind control, that's all they are.'

'You could play in an illegal house,' I said. 'Some of them are unplugged.'

'There are illegal houses?' Marshall looked stunned.

'Seriously?' Casino said. 'You didn't know that?'

'No,' Marshall said.

On the bright side, I thought, he'll probably never work out where the rum came from. 'Then how did you meet Haggia?' I said. 'I assume this was all through her?'

'No, not really. It was the same thing. I got a message saying that she would be a good source for a story I was working on and that she knew you guys and you regularly came into information for stories.'

'Who sent the message?' I said.

'I don't know. It was on my desk when I went into the office. I think someone took a call when I was out.'

'What story were you working on?' I said.

'Oh, it was a pet project,' Marshall said. 'It was about the prophecy. I didn't think it was real though, I thought it was from the past, or something. I really like mythology and that. So I did what I do. I followed the story and then I bumped into reality.' He didn't use rabbit eared fingers. He meant reality.

'And is Haggia a good source of information?' Casino said.

'No,' Marshall said. 'Hopeless. And you guys aren't very forthcoming but I was told that when I had more information to give you we'd swap. I help you, you help me. You know, quid pro quo as they say.'

Casino and I looked at each other. 'What information?' I said.

'I don't know, but the message said that I should help you and then you'd help me.'

'Do you have this note?' I said.

'No, I threw it in the bin so no one else could get hold of it and steal my contacts. It's all about contacts in this business.'

'All businesses are about contacts,' I said.

And this particular contact didn't seem to be very useful. Not yet anyway. Despite all Marshall's research he didn't know anything more than we did about the prophecy. I left Casino at the warehouse. He was simpering about wanting to find out more about how NWTV-24 worked. The woman with the big arms and staring eyes wasn't happy about it and as I wandered off I realised that Marshall was the subject of two very sweet crushes. Well, one that was cute and one that was that scary woman's and therefore troubling. I was almost home when I got a call from Roach.

'It's Doodle,' he said. 'The Galearii have got him.'

'Where?'

'Jubilee Market. I was getting a bite with Charlie and they went by. I think your friend from the Detention Centre is with them.'

Roach was standing on the street outside the Market, I'd run all the way and by the time I got there my lungs felt like they were on fire. They'd taken Doodle down to the storage area under the market. Roach said he went without a fuss but I'd have preferred it if he'd screamed his head off. Roach led me through the busy market to the staircase that led down to the basement, the lift was busy with people bringing goods up to their stalls. We slipped through some storage bays full of crates until we reached a large loading area at the end that had been listed for demolition. Roach pushed the signs and tape aside and gestured for me to be quieter still. We hid behind a pile of boxes and watched.

Doodle was tied to a chair. Three Galearii stood around him. His back was to us and facing him, on another chair, was Rowling. She didn't appear to be tied to hers though, she looked like she was having a chat in a Riverside bistro.

'I pay, I pay,' Doodle said. 'I pay, I pay.'

'Yes, you paid,' said Rowling. 'And where did you get the cash from?'

'I pay, I pay.'

One of the Galearii gestured to Rowling. She nodded.

'That doesn't matter now, we've gone beyond that. You can't just swap sides, Doodle,' she said. 'We had an agreement and you broke it. The cash was just an excuse, just a little story to go round the neighbourhood. It's worked wonders at the OP and their silly black market.'

Doodle shifted in the chair and another of the golden-haired gangsters smacked him across the face with the back of its hand, the echo rang out around the bay.

'Where did you get the money from?' Rowling stood so she could pace back and forth.

'I pay,' Doodle said.

Rowling took a very deep breath. 'Where did you get the money?' she screamed at him.

If he'd fallen backwards with the force of it I wouldn't have been surprised, even Roach shuddered. I wanted Doodle to tell her. Roach put his hand on my arm. And I thought Lola was the mind reader.

'It's very important that you tell me, because you have set in motion a series of events that could be catastrophic. For everyone,' Rowling sat down again, as though exhausted with Doodle's inability to co-operate. 'You have provided someone with an opportunity.'

'I pay, I pay,' said Doodle.

'You're not going to tell me, are you?' she said. She looked at the gangsters. 'This is pointless.'

The three Galearii, as one, moved closer to Doodle. He struggled.

Just tell them, Doodle. Tell them everything..

One of them backhanded Doodle in face again, the force of it spinning his chair around so he faced us. His face was covered in blood.

'Do it,' Rowling made a gesture, gave a sign of some kind. 'I'm bored of this.'

'We have to do something,' I said.

'Like what?' Roach said.

I looked around the bay. It was empty apart from some low ranking angels, a high ranking psychopath, a noodle seller, a chair and some rope.

'Anything you do will just draw attention to us and then we'll be dead too,' Roach used the same voice he'd use to talk to a cornered animal.

If only he would tell them, then it would be out of my hands. I'd have to do something. I could hear the sound of choking, and a gurgling. It was Doodle. He was trying to get free of the chair. He was gasping for air but with every breath came a gargling sound. He pulled at his ropes and rocked the chair from side to side. Water was pouring out of his mouth and down his shirt, pink with blood, spreading across his chest. He coughed up more and more water. It was bubbling out of him, pouring across the floor around his chair.

He was drowning on dry land.

Rowling and her gangsters watched, disinterested. Two of the Galearii had their hands in their tailored pockets.

I read somewhere that drowning was peaceful. It wasn't.

They loaded Doodle's soaked body into the back of an unmarked van, which Rowling summoned on her communications unit, and drove away with the siren wailing. Roach and me didn't move for some time, we just sat there in silence.

'I promised him I would sort it out,' I said.

'We promised,' Roach said. 'We promised.'

By the time we got up to investigate the pool of water on the floor was almost dry.

'It's still hot,' Roach said rubbing his damp fingertips together. 'Hot water.'

'There's something very odd about this,' I said.

'You don't say,' Roach wiped his fingers on his trousers with a grimace.

'But no one touched him,' I said. 'They just stood there and watched.'

'They didn't speak either,' Roach said. 'I didn't get a clear sight of the hand movements. I'm sorry.'

When we told the others Minos and Lola wanted to know what Rowling had meant when she said Doodle had swapped sides. But I couldn't make sense of that. Of anything. Roach lost himself in a book he'd found written in some Far Asian language, he read it backwards saying that was forwards and that seemed all right to me because everything felt upside down. The hours crawled by.

Minos poured forth such a bellowing stream of invective that it could be heard far from the incident room in both the kitchen and the games room.

'They've killed the Prime Minister,' he said at a similar volume.

'Who has?' Roach could beat Minos for volume when he wanted to.

There was a long silence during which we had enough time to assemble in incident room where Minos was watching four monitors and listening to the Enforce channel.

'Who has?' I said, watching some surveillance footage of five people running away from the scene of the crime, dreading the answer.

'We have,' Minos said. 'Or people quite like us.'

The story was unravelling on the television at a frantic pace, almost as fast as conspiracy theories were spinning out on the DarkNet. The usual updates were running on the web but it was the same old opinion spewed out by aggregators, repetitive and meaningless. Once in a while one of us would make a sarcastic remark and everyone else would snigger but when references to the Vanguard starting surfacing on the DarkNet we lapsed into our now trademark anxious silence. They were tangential remarks, just asides, but they were there.

'Maybe that explains why they aren't really looking for you,' Casino said, pointing to a news ticker on the ministry sponsored channel. I looked over in time to see the words an escapee from the Detention Centre scroll by. 'They were saving you for later.'

'Why are they admitting someone escaped?' I said.

'Look,' Lola said. 'That's Stark.'

Stark was being helped into the back of an Enforce car by Latch, who was finding the presence of cameras rather cramped his style. Stark made it into the back of the car in one unbattered, unbloodied piece. Lola picked up a mug and put it down again, stood and sat down again. They had rounded up all the people who had resigned from the Academies. Stark and a few of his friends had been accused of having criminal links with groups in the NW sector and were to be charged with crimes against the state that no one had ever heard of before. The story was that they wanted to take power while no one was sitting in the hot seat and set up a technocracy. It was clear that they were leaving the viewing public to join the two big news stories together, they were careful not to be too explicit. Agent Tourniquet wasn't on any of the warrants, but then given how tied up Stark said he was with the Prime Minister's office I hadn't expected him to be. Even though the more I thought about it the more he seemed the man most likely to go mad and kill someone for the fun of it.

'It's my fault,' Lola said to me.

'How do you make that one out?'

'They think he has links with the underclass,' she said. 'He does. You lot. Because of me.'

'We can go and get Stark out,' I said.

'We can't. The passes have expired.'

We were sitting on her balcony watching the dark clouds gathering off in the distance as another storm approached. The weather was not helping anyone's mood and the electrical storms kept putting the power out in the daytime.

'You helped me escape,' I said.

'Yes, but we had help on the inside,' Lola said. 'It's still true that no one gets out of the Detention Centre, you are the exception that proves the rule.'

'But we can do something,' I said.

'Why don't you ask Vermina to help?' Lola said. She seemed to be testing me for some reason.

'OK.'

'You can't do that. And she wouldn't help anyway, she took a massive risk last time. We can't do anything,' Lola said. 'Except wait.'

'Wait?' I wanted to help Stark because he'd helped us out so many times, and he was our friend and I didn't want bad things to keep happening to our friends. We couldn't abandon him.

'Patience is a virtue,' Lola peeled a flake of paint from the balcony rail. 'Besides something bigger than you, than me, than Stark is going on and I don't want to get in its way before I know what it is.' She flicked the small piece of old paint into the garden below and somehow Minos managed to get his eye underneath it.

'Where did you appear from?' Lola said, in no way apologising.

'I didn't appear, that's Casino,' Minos said, rubbing his eye. 'Audi Terminus has been announced as the new Prime Minister.'

We laughed until we realised he was serious. Every time Audi Terminus opened his mouth the sound that came out was the sound of the bottom of a barrel being scraped. He was around fourth choice for everything, nothing spectacular or special. He had got where he was in politics by being pliable, amenable and above all by appearing to be harmless.

'You owe me, Lola,' Minos said. 'You said it would be Tulan Haq.'

She was about to protest, and I was about to point out why that would never happen, when the perimeter alarm went off and deafened us all. It was Marshall Dailly, he had approached the hotel without giving fair warning or taking due care.

'Was it you?' he said, once we had shut off the alarm and installed ourselves in the lounge.

'We don't do politics,' I said.

'I didn't think it was you,' Marshall said, to Casino. 'But it's best to check.'

'Of course it is,' Casino said. 'What's the scoop on Terminus?'

'He tested best in the research,' Marshall said. 'I don't know how they got that in the gaming houses so fast but there you go. Tulan Haq is furious apparently, he wanted to turn it down, you see.'

'He wanted to turn it down?' Lola said.

'Haq's too smart to want to be Prime Minister,' I said. 'They don't last long.'

'Rhone lasted less time than anyone,' Marshall said. 'Although, to be fair, none of the others were assassinated.'

'Yehudi was,' Minos said. 'That was no prostitute.'

'Also, he didn't like baths,' I said. 'He only took showers.'

'What's the Terminus line?' Roach said. 'What's he selling himself as?'

'Moderate, friend of businesses large and small,' Marshall said.

'I bet mostly large,' Minos said.

'I bet mostly Imagination Industries,' I said.

'His big catchphrase is seize the day,' Marshall said. 'It's seize this, seize that but mostly he just means the day. Like it's an opportunity not to be missed. At least he's ditched Rhone's thing about being in it together. That's a positive, I suppose.'

'I never understood a word he said,' Casino said. 'All those long pauses.'

'He was a stranger to verbs,' I said. 'Apt for a man who couldn't commit to actually doing anything.'

'And those teeth,' Minos said. 'Yikes.'

'Did you just come to ask if it was us?' Casino said in way that suggested he hoped the answer was negative.

'No, well, yes,' Marshall said. 'If it wasn't you I wanted to make a suggestion. I think you need to put out another story, we need to take control of your image.'

Casino was most upset that he had to go to work and Roach toddled off to the dock no happier. Marshall's idea was a great one. One we would have come up with ourselves given more time, I was sure of that. We would expose their footage of the incident as fake by distributing our own, more believable footage. Minos and Marshall came up with a convincing alternative. Me and Lola then helped them trawl through hours and hours of footage finding what they needed. In the time it took us to get two minutes of fake surveillance footage together both Roach and Casino had worked full shifts and come home tired and a little bit grumpy. We sat them down, told them there had been a development and tested our masterpiece out on them.

'I knew it,' Casino jumped to his feet. 'Enforce.'

'If it fools him it'll fool maybe two per cent of the general population,' Minos said. 'Roach?'

'If it fools him?' Roach said. 'Is it fake?'

The footage was simple but we'd figured the less there was to it, the more active people's imaginations would be. We just added a couple of specific references to Chichester Rhone and his imminent death to clinch it. The film showed five enforce officers waiting outside a door in the Prime Minister's residence in the heart of the Riverside Sector, we got that from a documentary about the Prime Minister before the one before Rhone. Then it showed them talking on radios to someone in the Ministry of Securities, we got their voices from the scanner archive. Then the viewers would see them break open the door, this was part of a training demonstration, and then there was a gunshot but all that happened off camera, the view remained outside the door. An officer's voice could be heard describing what was happening in vague and hysterical terms, that too was from some training material, showing how not to do something. Every extract we used was genuine so when Enforce broke it down to analyse it everything would scan as authentic. Another glitch in their system. By putting together the truth we hadn't made a lie, we'd made another version of the truth and as far as we knew it could have been what happened. Not that whether it was true or not mattered, all that mattered was deflecting attention away from these five people who were too close to us for comfort.

'It's very convincing,' Roach said. 'Apart from the shot and flash are in sync when the flash should be slightly ahead.'

'Really?' Minos said.

'Yes, but only by a tiny, tiny fraction.'

'Good spot,' Marshall nodded in approval. 'Really good.'

Casino glared at Roach and I allowed myself a small chuckle.

'I'll upload this once it's fixed,' Minos said. 'Any bets on how fast it goes viral?'

It spread faster than the great chicken pox outbreak in the Project and in two hours and seventeen minutes it was at the top of every chart and listing, not only on the DarkNet, it had also been picked up on the web and all the TV news channels. Yomo's moment of fame was over.

'If they have to make a statement about it I'm going to cry big tears of joy,' Minos said, pouring another large glass of rum. 'Refill anyone?'

'Is this the rum everyone talking about?' Marshal said.

'I shouldn't think so,' Minos said. 'This is very secretive rum, it doesn't like to be talked about.'

The next morning I resolved, once again, to give up drinking. Once we had finished the rum. I was kind of pleased to find that we didn't have any milk, it was a comforting, mundane crisis that I felt more than equipped to deal with. Haggia was sitting on a chair in the sun, polishing some tomatoes as she watched the world go by.

'There's been more sirens and flashing lights flying up and down this street this morning than in the whole time I've been here,' she said. 'Something's afoot. You mark my words.'

'How are you feeling?' I said, wondering if I could ask her about the games.

'Fine, you?'

'I feel a bit delicate,' I said.

'You sit down. Talk to Haggia about it,' she said. 'I knew it would all come out, you get it out my love. Get it out.'

'Get what out?'

'The trauma, cry if you want, it's fine,' she clutched me round the waist, shiny tomatoes rolling out of her lap and across the floor.

'I've only got a hangover,' I said. 'Not even a big one.'

'You're all very resilient, you people,' she said, disappointed.

'We're all very out of milk,' I said.

'In the fridge,' Haggia said. 'Have you seen Marshall?'

'Not since last night,' I said, trying to think of a reason why I would have seen him that wouldn't incriminate us. 'He was still investigating the rum story.' True.

'No one's offered me any rum. I'm starting to feel left out.'

'It's apocryphal rum,' I said. 'Haven't you seen Marshall recently?'

'No, he's up to something and I don't know what it is. Aggravating I call that.'

'I'll stay out of it, if you don't mind.'

Opposite Haggia's place was a bottle shop. As usual, a crowd of alcoholics were hanging around outside, clutching their cheap bottles of homebrew and bent roll-ups. Haggia was retrieving her tomatoes when a man came flying out of the window of the bottle shop and landed on the pavement in a pile of glass and hobo. Mere seconds behind him came a gang of several men with long wooden bats. They applied these bats to the man on the pavement with great enthusiasm and then moved on to the next shop.

'They've got protection, haven't they?' I said, pointing to the insignia above the door. It meant that they paid a monthly fee to an Enforce officer who would in turn provide them with some level of security support, depending on their mood. The shop owners would, at least, avoid the kind of official harassment that would drive them out of their business and out of their minds. It was a practice so rife it was like a formal tax, except officers skimmed off the top like they were taking tips in a strip joint.

'Looks like it,' Haggia said, putting her precious tomatoes on the counter by the cash register. 'Bring the shutter down, would you?'

We could hear yelling coming from further up the road. It was interrupted for a moment by some colourful screaming but then started up again. Haggia pulled a stubby shotgun out from under the counter. In those days no one kept pets, so owners look like their weapons. I thought-brought the shutter crashing down, the padlocks at the bottom secured themselves in triple rush time.

'Now, I like a riot as much as the next person,' Haggia said. 'But I have a very bad feeling about this.'

My wristset beeped with stern orders to get back home right away. For once I did as I was told, running along the walls at the back of the shop like a tom cat on a promise. The best riot in living memory was the Harlestone Riot a few years earlier. It was more of an extended street party and barbeque than a riot, and this one was very different. Right from the start there was something wrong. There was no carnival atmosphere, no festival spirit. This one was just violent and dogged. Within two hours they'd started digging up the water pipes. This had no effect on our water supplies, as all our water had to be shipped in from Caledonia, but it did make the streets difficult to navigate, for us. For Enforce, resplendent in the finest gear a frogman could acquire, it didn't present any challenge at all. Marshall Dailly spent most of his time in front of a camera standing in thigh-high water wearing knee-high boots. Behind him people marauded around waving things they had stolen above their heads as though engaged in a piece of performance art.

Roach approached the riots as though he were writing a thesis, analysing endless footage and reports.

'It's not a riot,' he said. 'Not as we know it.'

'What is it then?' Lola said.

'It's a publicity stunt,' Roach said.

'How do you mean?' Lola said.

'People are getting paid to riot,' Roach said.

'Who's paying them? Casino said.

'Enforce.'

'Enforce are paying people to riot?' I thought that was strange, even for them. 'Why are they doing that?'

'I don't know,' Roach said. 'But that man that drinks in Michelangelo's, you know the one with the guard dog on the bit of string, he got two hundred and fifty in unbonded credit to go and cause trouble in Queens.'

'Did he do it?' I said. The traitor.

'He said he didn't have a choice. Enforce took the dog.'

We all watched various screens as the scanner burbled on with its constant babble. The news had been showing round the clock footage of rioting in the NW sector, the presenters benign and tolerant in their commentary, as though we were a spoilt child showing off for some attention. One story did the rounds more than the others. It was a short clip, so frantic it would have been impossible to fake. There was a line of Enforce being pushed back by a thirty or forty strong rabble armed with broken bricks and other choice pieces of masonry. The fact that Enforce were being pushed back by peasants with stones was odd, under normal circumstances a quick burst of gun fire would ring out and the rabble would fall down or fall back. The officers reversed until they almost disappeared from the edge of the frame, then their ranks parted and between them appeared a line of Galearii. They moved into the crowd with decisive speed. In two minutes the crowd had disappeared apart from a dozen or so bodies that twitched on the ground.

Casino leant forward, peering into the screen. 'That's Ginger Yates, isn't it?'

The camera panned across the bodies, lingering on the scene as the presenters struggled for words to describe what had just happened. The body on the end, bulky and beaten, was Ginger.

'But it can't be him,' I said. 'He's in the Detention Centre.'

'Maybe they're not paying them to riot,' Minos said. 'Maybe they're making them.'

Roach continued to monitor developments while the rest of us loafed about and waited for it to stop. It was impossible to go out most of the time but we tried for a brief interlude of excitement when they flooded the main road and we took the antique canoe from off the wall in the games room out for a spin. The rash Minos got from falling in the water didn't bear thinking about, particularly not at meal times. We didn't venture out again. There was a tension in the air I had never known before. The western part of the city was on lockdown. There were Enforce everywhere operating under emergency protocols and the power outage was extended along with the curfew. Work and Labour sectors received protection to allow them to carry on working and labouring but the rest of the city was shut down. Galearii kept appearing and disappearing, popping up to dispense their terminal brand of justice. Then, when things were about to calm down because they'd beaten or killed everyone they'd paid or coerced into rioting, they cut the credit lines in the NW and N Sectors so no one could buy or sell anything. After that Harlestone and the people in the ghetto rioted for free. And the northern central districts of N Sector joined in as well. The Enforce board of directors released a statement saying that the prolonged activity was having such an effect on their reserve credit that they might have to start selling off parts of the business.

I started worrying about whether that meant they'd be selling the Detention Centre to Imagination Industries or worse. If they didn't have any credit how had they paid people to riot? There was something not right about it. We turned off the news in the end, unable to stomach anymore. The Galearii were hailed as heroes in the rest of the city and we couldn't stand to hear another plastic doll cheering about what they called the clean-up of the ghettos. We had been running wild for too long they said, it was about time someone stood up to us. If Enforce hadn't been running out of money we'd have all been rounded up and thrown in a camp somewhere. They were so grateful to the Galearii for stepping in and succeeding where Enforce had failed that there was not a single murmur of descent when three angels stood behind Terminus as he made an appeal for calm.

'This isn't a publicity stunt,' I said. 'It's a coup.'

'We might as well go on holiday,' an invisible Casino said from somewhere near the sofa three days later. 'For all the good we're doing here.'

We were sitting in a suite on the top floor that we didn't use very often, just for a change of scene. It was on the sixth floor so we could see all the hardware Enforce had in the sky. It was a wonder we were not in darkness the whole time, so large was the shadow the collected kit cast across the ground. They'd set off a huge sonic bomb in the morning and although the aftershock had knocked over three buildings not far from the hotel, it had done little more than cause temporary deafness in a hundred hardcore rioters who found it amusing to shout as loud as they could even though they had all recovered their hearing.

'A holiday would be nice,' Minos said. 'A couple of weeks on a tropical island. White sand, blue sea.'

'Black sunburn,' Lola said.

'That was just a rumour,' Minos said.

'We could go to Nexus,' I sat up in the reclining chair I'd been lying on.

Roach looked up from his book. 'We could.'

'We don't know how to get there,' Lola said.

But Roach, Minos and Casino were already out of the door and on their way to find out.

'You don't want to leave Stark?' I said.

'It's not that,' Lola said.

'Then what?'

She picked up the open book Roach had left on the sofa, slipped his bookmark inside and closed it. 'OK, it is. Annoyingly,' she said. 'I've realised that I'm a bit more attached to Stark than I thought I was. I can't imagine how I let that happen, but there you have it.'

'I see.'

'I read his mind.'

First Casino, then Lola. The things they did for love. I wasn't going to ask what his mind said.

'Anyway, it's all your fault,' Lola said.

'My fault?'

'Yes, it was you he noticed, if you'd noticed him back that would have been it, but you didn't. That's why I looked to see what he was thinking. To see where I stood, I guess. Does that make sense?'

I said yes, even though no would have been the more honest answer. I had met Stark first, that was true, but only because I had longer legs than Lola and could therefore run faster. And any man would notice a woman who knocked him clean off his feet and down a flight of stairs, then hit him with a briefcase for his trouble. We'd been playing a long con and having closed the deal and switched the cases we were making a run for it. Security wasn't tight at the Arts Academy but it was broad shouldered and vindictive so we wanted out of there before they opened the other case and realised that they hadn't bought a couple of pounds of a rare pigment. They had, in fact, purchased a similar weight of flour. Cheap, synthetic flour at that. Stark let us into his office and turned a blind eye when we climbed out of the window. Lola was giving him all the right signals that she could muster, so I palmed his credit card from his pocket for later reference because that's what friends are for.

'So, I blame you for all this wedding nonsense,' Lola sighed.

'Wedding nonsense?'

'Yes, if he gets out I'm going to ask him to marry me,' a tear hung from her eyelashes. 'If you had distracted him instead of picking his pocket I wouldn't be in this mess.'

I did a Minos whistle. Sometimes Lola could be very conventional in the most Administrative way. Only a handful of people ever got married and that was because it was a family tradition. The Capuzzos, I suspected, got married as did the Starks, in all likelihood. I didn't know what the Blades used to do way back when, but I suspected it would involve a massive knife fight.

# Chapter Eleven

Early next morning, the five of us were standing on a pier in the northern dock waiting for a contact of Minos's to turn up in his boat. It was just before dawn and cold, none of us had slept. I felt a little like we were running away such was the speed of our departure, but Roach found a boat leaving for Nexus with a shipment of something classified and Minos had made the necessary alterations to everyone's work placement data before the rest of us could raise even the smallest query. It would be a flying visit not the hedonistic jaunt Minos had been dreaming of.

We drove to the security cordon surrounding the rioting sectors just before four in the morning and slipped through in the chaos caused when a small generator exploded, not at all of its own accord, during a shift change. We picked up a tro-tro around Arch and Park and found ourselves at the dock in double quick time. Even under those circumstances, at that time in the morning the city was still as unlike itself as we would ever see it, as though it was taking a breather before putting its uniform on, strapping its boots up and punching everyone it happened upon in the face.

'I really like sleep,' I said. 'I miss it.'

'Me too,' Roach said.

'Is he late?' Lola said.

'Not yet,' Minos said. 'But he will be.'

He was ten minutes late. Lola, who was a stranger to being on time herself, was freezing cold and therefore angry. A battered barge chugged up to the short pier.

'Minos, Minos, Minos,' the man on the barge said. 'Minos.'

'Just Minos once is fine,' he said.

'Minos once, I want paying up front this time,' the man said.

I held up a card with the required amount of credit on it. 'And I want to set foot on that boat before I hand this over.'

'And you'll be most welcome, me name's Rosy,' Rosy said. 'I'm named after me vessel.'

I wondered if he too had his name written in bright, curly lettering along his flank. We threw our bags onto the deck and jumped after them in time-honoured smuggler fashion. Rosy had a pot of thick hot chocolate on a stove in his cabin. He'd fitted up an old fashioned galleon ship's wheel to steer the barge. He stood in front of it like a proper old skull and crossbones pirate. He had long, plaited hair with different coloured rags and beads woven into it. He'd lost his front teeth in an argument with a goose which he'd also lost. His shirt was voluminous and his chest full of pendants.

We made conversation about the riots. Rosy was not much affected, he lived on the river, so it was hard going and Lola was no help because she was tired and grumpy. I sipped hot chocolate and watched the river slide by the window, the water thicker than the chocolate but not as sweet. Once we'd stopped trying to be polite Rosy slipped into a well-rehearsed repertoire of tales about adventures he'd had as a young sailor. He was an entertaining story-teller.

'Why do you want aboard the Vanessa?' Rosy said, asking the question he'd been dying to ask. 'It's not carrying anything you'll be interested in.'

'It's also going to wrong way,' Minos said. 'Mysterious, isn't it?'

'There's no need to be secretive,' Rosy said. 'I'll not tell a soul.'

'We're going to Nexus,' I said.

'Where?'

'Nexus. It's a new island, just been discovered,' I said.

'An explorer, are you?' Rosy smiled at me.

'A spy,' I said.

The Rosy pulled up next to the Vanessa, as the sun was coming up over the tower blocks to the south. The Vanessa had dropped anchor just near the old Barrier. It should have kept the flood from the city but now its fins didn't even rise above the surface of the water at high tide and at low tide they looked like the peaks of the rib cage of a dinosaur, fallen, abandoned and just as useless.

'Safe trip,' said Rosy as he gave me a leg up and then watched us climb up the massive links in the Vanessa's anchor chain. Minos was up it like a rocket, practice having made perfect, the rest of us struggled up behind him. We climbed into the anchor housing and listened to the guttural cough of the Rosy's engine disappearing as it sailed back up the river.

I slept until Minos woke me up to show me something he claimed was amazing. I joined Casino, Roach and Lola at the porthole expecting a windsurfing unicorn.

'It's enormous,' Roach said.

'I have never seen anything like it in all my days at the docks,' Minos said after an awed whistle. 'It must be a mile long.'

'It's a ship,' I said. I was not at my most astute when I'd just woken up.

It was a few hundred metres away but its black hull filled our view. It looked more like a submarine than a ship, there were no windows, no identifying marks apart from a code painted on the bow.

'NX-ETW,' Casino said. 'What does that mean?'

'It must mean it's from Nexus, usually the first two letters tell you where a ship's come from. NX must be Nexus. I don't know what the rest means, it's from their fleet inventory. I've never seen anything like that before.'

'What do you think is on it?' Roach said, more in wonder than in expectation of an answer.

'No idea, I'd love to find out though,' Minos said.

We watched the ship sail out of our field of vision, then I went back to catch up on the sleep I'd missed.

We didn't have a sneaky plan to get us off the boat once it had docked almost a day later, so we just marched down the broad gangplank looking as though we knew exactly what we were doing and were exactly where we should have been doing it. It was a tried and tested technique that had only failed us on one occasion because Minos had tripped over a small child and sworn in his usual comprehensive fashion. People just didn't expect a man dressed as a surgeon to do that. Pale, picture-book sand stretched out either side of the narrow dock which was operating with efficient smoothness. There was something balletic about the way people fetched and carried, back and forth. I feared we may find fitting in difficult.

'It's so warm,' Lola said, taking off her jacket. 'Lovely and warm.'

The sun shone unclouded. We looked up at the blue sky and I realised I hadn't seen the sun look like that for a long time, if ever. At best I'd seen it achieve a hazy impersonation of this sun. The sky hadn't been blue since they tried to clean the clouds and methylene hung over us until it turned cobalt. Then it went an indescribable shade of green and fell in hailstones the size of footballs. There would have been serious injuries had the hailstones not been so brittle they shattered on impact. Nexus was troubled by the occasional white, fluffy cloud but it was a beautiful day with no sign of change. Far off on the horizon, clouds gathered but they showed no sign of coming any nearer. I'd watched clouds full of thunder racing up from the coast, from the roof of the Project thousands of feet above the city, but here they waited as though they'd been forbidden to approach.

'And it's so green,' Roach said.

Between the many paths and narrow roads that ran away from the docks grew palm trees and other shrubbery that didn't quite look indigenous. There was something wrong with Nexus. The whole place felt like it had been built, like it was handmade. We headed away from the dock and towards some buildings huddled around a quiet square. It was an inviting space after the busy dock. It begged you to kick off your shoes and relax beneath yet another palm tree. It looked like a brochure. The buildings were the squat pop-ups made from the easy-build kits that had been popular right after the flood. Here they were grander and cleaner but it was the same simple technology.

'This place is giving me the creeps,' I said, sudden homesickness striking. The dirt was the only thing holding home together, here everything was so clean it would fall apart in a heartbeat. It had never survived anything, rebelled against anyone. It was horrible.

'It is very unusual,' Roach said. 'Let's have a drink and acclimatised.'

Minos led the way to a bar heaving with people who had the cheerful air of having just finished a shift. We occupied a dark booth up some stairs at the back so we could maintain a low profile. We found ourselves at a useful vantage point. Huddled around soft drinks we gazed through the window. We could see all the way across the island. Apart from three large, white domes some way off, there didn't seem to be much there, nothing to suggest that the enormous ships we'd seen could have come from the Nexus. The island was flat and the only boat in sight was the Vanessa.

'I can't do it,' Casino said, taking his hand off Lola's head. 'I've tried. It doesn't work.'

'It would make things much easier,' Lola said.

'Yeah, I realise that, but I can only make myself invisible.'

'And your clothes,' Minos said. I think he was trying to be helpful.

Roach was sitting with a focused look on his face, he was listening to three men sitting in the booth next to us. They were chattering away in one of the Latin State languages, their voices and laughter drifting over the high partition between us. He chuckled.

'It's underground,' he said.

'What is?' Lola said.

'Nexus. The whole island is underground.'

'I don't suppose they mentioned where the entrance was?' Casino said.

It was Minos who found the way in, although it's more accurate to say it found him. One minute he was standing next to me, arguing with Casino about whether the light from our torches would attract unwanted attention in the darkness that had gathered in the hours that we'd been searching, the next he was gone. He'd attempted to storm off and disappeared down a hole. The rest of us used the metal ladder that had been installed for our convenience.

'Nice one,' Roach said, picking up Minos by his collar. 'We'd have never found that otherwise.'

We tried to head north, towards the domes that we'd seen, but the passages kept twisting around so we spent a tense half hour going in a direction we were sure was south. Time was not on our side, we planned to get the Vanessa back home. Underground, Nexus reminded me of the hospital, there were the same bright white walls and frosted glass panels. Everything was so generic, so unidentifiable somehow. We arrived at an automatic glass door that needed to be opened with swipe card. We hid around the sides of the door.

'Can we open that?' Roach said.

'No,' Minos said, after swiping and jabbing at his tablet. 'No we can't. We can't do anything because there is no technology in the air here. There's only air. And what good is that?'

On the other side of the door was a guard, asleep in a chair. He looked just like one of the guards they had in the Arts Academy to stop the paintings from running away. Attached to his belt was a karabiner with a swipe card hanging from it.

'I think I can open it,' I said.

The karabiner began to unscrew itself, the movement so slow it would have been almost imperceptible to unsuspecting eyes. The card then rose and freed itself. It moved through the air towards the door, which it slipped under with only the slightest scraping sound, to arrive in my hand. I got a very quiet round of applause. I held the card up to show the others. Just as Marshall's interview had suggested, Nexus was in the hands of Imagination Industries. The card had their logo embossed on one side. It stared out at us like an evil eye. I opened the door and we crept past the guard so as not to wake him. The swipe card seemed to open all the doors without a problem and we were making steady northern progress. I felt a vague concern about how deserted everywhere was, but we rounded a long curve in the tunnel and that was no longer an issue. Our tunnel had opened up into a much larger tunnel which was carrying very light vehicle traffic, like those battery run carts they use at the airport for rich people who can't walk very far. There was a steady stream of people coming from the east. They had the air of the commuter about them. We fell in line. I wished I had been able to find at least one small piece of information that would tell us something about what we were going to encounter.

'We need to find somewhere to base ourselves,' Minos said. 'Once we've got our bearings. Somewhere in a maintenance shaft or something. Keep your eyes peeled.'

We followed the crowd until we arrived at the lip of a long slope that plunged down into a huge, sunken basin. The sides of the basin were honeycombed with smaller tunnels leading away from the central space. One side of the space had been opened out, its huge door rising up to the domed roof. We were under one of the domes that we'd seen from the bar. Inside was a huge ship, like the NX-ETW, its rear doors open. The rest of the crowd made their way down the slope.

'Let's go this way,' Casino said. 'We need to hurry up or we'll get spotted.'

We followed him along a narrow path which swept around the top of the basin. There were no security cameras anywhere. There was no surveillance equipment of any kind.

'How are they going to spot us?' I looked around to see if there was any more security. 'There are no cameras or anything.'

'Maybe they think they don't need them,' Roach said.

The idea made me shudder. Everyone watched everyone, that was what we did, everyone was afraid of everyone else. These people weren't watching because they had nothing to fear. Or, I reasoned, maybe they weren't watching because they were too stupid to think they needed to. It was a comforting thought but I wasn't convinced, there was an air of intelligence and invincibility about Nexus. They'd mastered the weather after all. Minos did one of his whistles, a quiet one. We were opposite the huge ship and although it was some distance away, our new perspective afforded us an interesting view. There was no mistaking the long lines of figures marching aboard.

'There must be thousands of them,' Lola said. 'Thousands.'

'Army servants,' Roach said. 'That's what Stark called them.'

'No wonder,' I said.

They moved in formation, as one, on to the huge ship with their golden hair shining in the bright, artificial light. The basin was buzzing with activity, just like the dock. There were more of the now familiar cars lined up on one side and they were being driven on the ship beside the army, while crates were loaded on the other side. The ship was sitting in dry dock and in another vast hall beyond there was water behind a transparent dam of some kind. There seemed to be some serious equipment in the hall which I assumed was for raising and lowering the ship and controlling the flow of water. The ships must be able to go above and beneath the water, if they could do that, they wouldn't need permission or paperwork to dock anywhere, they could just hide.

'Who are all these people? Where have they got them from?' Minos said, watching the people below. They looked like little insects rushing back and forth. They weren't Galearii. They were just people, just like us. Well, maybe not just like us.

'From everywhere,' Roach said. 'I think they've come from all over the world. But how?'

'They can't just have turned up,' I said. 'They must have been recruited.'

'Let's find somewhere to set up,' Minos said. 'We need to try and get into the system to find out what's going on.'

We made our way to the right, away from the disturbing sight of the army of angels and their worker ants, and found a maintenance tunnel. We set up camp in the tunnels that serviced the lift shafts. We didn't see any lifts moving up and down but the shaft the lifts travelled was so deep you couldn't hear anything land at the bottom. I insisted Minos tie himself to a pipe, in case he had an accident and fell down the shaft. Even though it was in the next room it wasn't inconceivable that he could trip over and tumble down it. I'd seen him have more ridiculous accidents. Casino disappeared and went off to explore. Lola went down the tunnel to play look out. Minos plugged himself into a laptop and began the process of trying to pick up any connection.

'Neat trick with the card,' Roach said.

'Thank you,' I said. 'Right back at you for the underground discovery.'

'And thank you,' he smiled. Then frowned. 'You look tired.'

'I'm OK. None of us looked fabulous.'

'Get the others back,' Minos said. 'Now.'

Minos was all in a fidget about something. While we waited for Lola and Casino, Roach untied Minos from the pipe, before he chewed through the cable, and he hopped around with sparks fizzing around his ears. He looked like a malfunctioning firework. It was harder to hang on to yourself on when you were upset, like having an extra temper somehow.

'I've got some particularly bad news,' Minos said. 'We've been here for too long. We've just missed the boat.'

'How did that happen?' Lola said.

'There must be a dead spot or something where all the receivers went down. I don't know, I thought they were working,' he looked like he was going to vomit. 'I have to be honest with you, I'm completely out of my depth here.'

'What are we going to do?' Casino said.

Everyone looked at me. Why did they always look at me?

'There's another ship leaving,' I said. 'We've seen it.'

'No way,' Lola said.

'I can find out a way for us to get on it,' Casino said, disappearing and reappearing to prove his point.

'Might be our only option,' Roach said. 'Minos?'

'Don't ask me, as well as having no security they've got no real computer system either. These guys are old school.'

'Then how did you find out about the time?' I said.

'I brought this with us,' he held up a watch. It was one of those old fashioned, round ones that had little arms pointing to tiny numbers. All it did was tell the time, it was made back when the space on your wrist wasn't at such a premium. 'I thought it would be good to rely on some honest, old fashioned hardware. These Galearii go way back according to Stark's books, I figured it would be good to be prepared. I underestimated them. I'm sorry.' He passed it to me for inspection.

'It makes a ticking noise, that's sweet,' I said. It was more comforting than any sound my wristset had ever made. I handed the tiny clock to Roach.

'How does it work?' Roach said. 'Does it have a battery?'

'You wind it up with that little knob there,' Minos said. 'Which I have done every morning and evening for weeks, so it's definitely right. We've missed our ride.'

'We'll just have to get on that ship,' I said.

'That's insane,' Lola said. She passed the watch to Casino without even looking at it.

'If you have a better idea, I'm all ears,' I said. 'We could always stay here, I guess.'

No one had any better ideas. We agreed to get some sleep and then make the most of our unexpected time on the island by having a proper look round when everyone was asleep. If Galearii slept, which I suspected they didn't. I took the first watch and sat up trying to be alert while the others got some shut eye.

The restaurant was exquisite and intimate. It was almost as though the other diners weren't there. They were indistinct against the art deco interior design. The chime of crystal glasses and the clatter of silver cutlery could have been piped, such was the perfection of the ambience. We were sitting at a table. We seemed to have finished eating dessert. The waiter handed her a small silver tray with a key on it. His face slid from my mind in an instant, as every good waiter's should. The restaurant was in a hotel.

'Come with me,' she said.

The lift counted through the floors in a blur of red numbers then announced our arrival on the top floor in a purr more seductive than any machine should have been programmed with. The view from the penthouse suite was even more breathtaking than they usually are.

'Am I asleep?' I said.

'No,' she said, her red hair flickering in the candlelight again. 'You are caught.'

I waited.

'You are caught in that moment between being awake and asleep. Once this breath finishes you will be fast asleep,' she said. 'Drink?'

'I'm supposed to be the look out,' I said. 'I can't be fast asleep.' I was always surprised by how hard the bubbles in champagne were, I supposed that contradiction is part of the fun.

'Then you'll wake up,' the green eyes were smiling. 'Are you wondering why you are here?'

'Not yet.'

The whole face smiled then. It felt like the right answer even though I was only being honest.

She walked over to the window. The glass stretched from floor to ceiling and wall to wall, beyond it the city lights were bright and colourful. Their light was vast and spread without the dark patches of brown outs. Étienne was wearing a long white gown with her hair tumbling down her bare back to her waist. It was all the colours of red that there could be. Her pale fingers touched the window pane. She was the kind of beautiful that empties your head of everything except the simple fact of that beauty.

'OK,' I said. 'Why am I here?'

'Sit down,' Étienne said.

'Sit down as in prepare for a shock?'

'No, sit down as in make yourself comfortable,' she sat on the long leather sofa.

I joined her. I sat at the other end.

'I'm pleased you recognised me,' she said. 'I went to a lot of trouble for you.'

I murmured something that could have been thanks or a compliment.

'Even this,' she said, gesturing to herself. 'Is for you.'

I was glad I was sitting down.

'You didn't recognise this one,' she said and the man from her house was sitting in her chair instead of her. I made sure of what I was seeing, for my poor brain's sake. Right where she'd been sitting sat the man who took dream data from Imagination Industries, the man who could see the invisible. I must have looked amazed.

She laughed. 'It's all right, you weren't supposed to. I don't always look like this. Or that.'

'Why did you...'

She looked at me in expectation, waiting.

'Why...'

'Yes?' Étienne said.

Why what? I didn't know. How do you formulate a question like that and where would you begin to understand the answer? I shook my head.

'Your friend was rather rude,' she said. 'I'm not sure I liked him.'

'Casino? He was upset about being Mr Invisible,' I said. 'He thought you knew something about it. And, in his defence, he was absolutely right.'

She smiled. 'How do you like being telekinetic?'

I would have preferred an easy question. 'I don't much,' I said. 'I thought it would be like I imagined when I was a kid, but it isn't. The cape isn't up to much either.'

'When you're a child you don't have to worry about the why,' she paused. 'Well, most children don't have to worry about the why.'

I refilled our glasses so I had something to do.

'Ask me a question. I promise to answer it no matter what it is,' she said. 'If I can.'

Don't think, just ask. 'Why?'

'I can't tell you that, it will alter the course.'

'It will alter the course?' I put the glass down before I dropped it.

'Ask me anything else. Honestly. Anything.'

'Who wrote the prophecy?' I didn't want to know anything else, just why.

'I did.'

'I suppose telling me why would alter the course?'

She flashed that celestial smile again. 'You don't like the word prophecy. That's all right, I don't much like it either but you know how people are. The grandeur is so seductive. It started as a well placed story, and then it grew and grew and people took the characters to heart and now it's real and alive. This is just as it has always happened. But something else always happens next. And there's another side to the story, of course. There's always that.'

'The Galearii?'

'Partly, yes. But there are others'

'Others?'

'It's not entirely under my control anymore. It's like planting an acorn, you know it will grow into an oak tree but you have no idea how tall the trunk will be, how broad the branches, how deep the roots.'

'Are those others here as well?'

'No one is here except you and me. There is no one else right now.'

I decided I was going to have to let that one go. 'No, I mean on the island,' I said.

'No one important and you shouldn't there be much longer either. The more time you spend there the more danger you will be in.'

'How do you know?'

'It is written.'

'By you?'

'By both sides.'

'But...'

'When you discovered your powers, all of you used them all the time to do the most ordinary things. And then you stopped. Why?'

'Because it was...' I didn't want to say it. 'Boring.'

'Exactly. When you can have whatever you want, after a while you don't want anything.'

I wanted to find that hard to believe. She laughed.

'Can you read my thoughts?' I said with far more composure than I felt. Far, far more.

She hesitated. 'Yes, but not in the same way Lola can. And I didn't just then, I read that in your face.' She moved along the sofa. We had been metres apart but now I didn't need to reach out to touch her. 'Everything you can all do, I can do. And more, as you've seen. I can reach every point in space and time simultaneously.'

'Do you know what's going to happen?'

'Only if I look,' she said. 'I haven't looked. Like you suggested , it's not much fun anymore.'

I wanted her to look. I wanted her to show me.

'Your time is coming, Sorcha. It's nearly here. I sense you are getting anxious and that's understandable. I want to tell you it's going to be all right.'

'You don't know that, you haven't looked.'

'I don't need to look, I know you,' she said. 'I chose you and you chose them.'

'What about Doodle?' I said. 'He was my friend.'

'They wanted to use him to tell part of their story but instead he's telling ours. They couldn't keep him on their side. That's not your fault.'

It felt like my fault.

'It wasn't,' she put her hand on my arm in apology, the thought hadn't crossed my face. 'Nothing is your fault. It's mine, all of it. From the beginning to the end I take the blame, and I will take it, for everything.'

The clock on the wall above the fireplace hadn't moved. It was the same as the one on Minos's wrist. The hands were still. Everything was still.

'I want to give you something,' she said, her hand was resting on my arm. Its weight was somehow more than it should have been. She paused.

'What?' I said.

'I want to give you freedom to act without worrying about the consequences, without thinking about what happens next.'

'What for?'

'So you can do what you need to do.'

I felt like kids were meant to, like I didn't know anything but everything was fascinating. It was her. She made things that way.

'But why will I do whatever I'm supposed to do?' I said.

'Why do we do anything?' she said. 'It's all about the possibility.'

'The possibility of what?'

Her lips were warm and soft but the floor in the maintenance tunnel was cold and hard.

'Oh, yeah?' Casino said, sitting up in his sleeping bag. He looked like a caterpillar. 'And since when were you such an incurable romantic?'

'She's always been a terrible look out though,' Roach said.

It seemed I had taken to talking in my sleep. How inconvenient.

It was midnight according to Minos's timepiece. We had a quick breakfast of chocolate, as though it was a special festive holiday, and then formulated a plan. We would let Casino go ahead, unseen, and then take it from there. There was no love lost between us and planning but that was how we had always been and, to be fair, it was how most things had to be when you didn't know what was going to happen from one minute to the next. We'd been waiting for the electricity to give out for a decade, they said the flood water might recede at any time, or it might rise. We planned for constant change by not planning, that was all we could do. Now a plan would have been handy we found we were terminally spontaneous.

We returned to our hideout five minutes after setting off, it was impossible to follow an invisible man. We refined our strategy and then set out again. Casino went ahead and then waved a scrap of green cloth torn from Minos's t-shirt to indicate that we had the all clear and to show a direction of travel, then he hid it in his fist and went off again.

All the lights were in standby mode, the blue tones giving the white walls a glacial appearance as though we were in the palace of an ice queen. There was not a soul about. Finally, there was a break in the corridors other than the occasional empty room sitting dim and dull behind glass doors. There was a large, secured door baring our way at the end of a corridor that opened into a large garden under a glass dome. We let ourselves in with the key card. The greenhouse was hot and humid. It was full of flowers that we'd never seen, not even Roach had seen them in a book and he gone through botany the week before last. There was one flower that looked like it was chewing, one that smelt like rotting cheese and flying between them were gigantic butterflies that chased Lola because she squealed at them. I could have sworn the butterflies thought it was funny. We wandered through, not daring to touch anything in case we got eaten, until we'd crossed the room and reached a wooden door at the far end. They'd put a sign on this one, it said Administrative Building in seven different languages. The top two floors of the building seemed to be above ground, the glassed centre forming a huge atrium through which the moonlight brightened the hall. We stood in the middle looking up at the long balconies running around the edge of the building. There were some lifts on the west side. The floors went up to two and down to minus fifteen according to the list of numbers and names next to the lift. They were all codes numbers. Roach spent some time trying to work out what they might mean until I recognised one. ATLSB-BNAMAH. I pushed the down button. The doors opened.

'Which floor?' Lola said, her finger hovering over the panel of buttons inside the lift as the doors closed on us.

'Minus eleven,' I said. 'It's that cheat code.'

At first I thought the lift had opened in a different building. Whereas everything upstairs had been white and clean, everything down here was dark wood, polished but old. The passing of many years had marked the wood beneath its varnish, even the lights were period authentic. They could have been real, but period authentic was the new real. Large double doors stood at the end of the corridor. We walked towards them as the lift doors closed, darkening the hallway even more. I peered through the keyhole into the blackness on the other side of the door.

'Nothing?' Lola said.

'It's too dark,' I stood up.

'Go and stand down there,' Lola said. 'All of you.'

We all stood by the lift until she gestured for us to return.

'There's no one there,' she said. 'No one sentient anyway.'

'I love a non-sentient being in the middle of the night,' Minos said.

'Great,' Casino said from nowhere.

'You don't need to be invisible anymore,' Lola said.

'I like it,' Casino said. 'It makes me feel safe.'

On the other side of the door was a huge library, its lights dimmed after hours. We shushed each other and made ourselves laugh a hundred times. We were as nervous as children on the first day of school, our laughter hollow and jittery. But if there was one thing certain in life, it was librarians telling you to shush. Even the libraries at home, which had no books to speak of and were filled with information leaflets from various ministries demanded absolute silence. The Nexus library was a large hexagonal space with six very long rooms coming off it. Rows of shelves, packed close together, filled these rooms. They were crammed with books that looked like the ones in Étienne's library. Old magic again. Minos was right, they were old school. We wandered up and down the shelves, Roach trying to pretend he wasn't very excited.

'Sshh,' Casino said, appearing.

We giggled again.

'No, really. Shut up,' he said. 'There's a security guard in here.'

We scattered. Roach hid behind some shelves, Minos got in a cupboard and Lola and I hid under a desk. Casino tried to run in six different directions all at once and then remembered he didn't need to hide and disappeared. I saw the flash of a torch on the period authentic carpet. It was only four shelves away and getting closer. I could hear someone whistling a flat drone without a tune, like a chant or a meditation. A guard came around the corner and started to walk towards us between the rows of shelving. One lucky fall of his torch beam and Lola and I would be discovered. I was about to shut my eyes, when I was a kid I used to think that if I shut my eyes and couldn't see anyone they couldn't see me, but then I saw a very heavy book floating through the air behind the guard. It followed him for a few steps then rose up to hit him on the back of the head with a dull thud. The guard fell to the ground with another thud, this one not so dull. Casino appeared.

'Nice,' Roach said. 'Although next time you'll have to hit him a bit harder.' The guard was already groaning. He would have stood up if Roach hadn't been sitting on him.

'What's your name?' I said.

'Hyatt,' the guard said.

We tied him to the banister of one of the six spiral staircases that led up to a narrow floor housing more books. It was in an alcove off the main central room of the library behind some doors that folded like a concertina. Hyatt had suggested it as a suitable place. He really was very helpful once he'd realised we weren't going to kill him.

'I'm really sorry about hitting you with that dictionary, Hyatt,' Casino said.

'I understand,' Hyatt said. 'It's quite all right really, it didn't hurt, I was more surprised than anything.'

'OK, Lola get ready,' I said, as Roach, Minos and Casino backed off to a safe distance. 'Now, Hyatt, I'm not supposed to be here. I have come from a long way away to spy on whatever is going on here and find out all your secrets. I want you to tell me the one thing you're not supposed to tell me. The one thing that you've been told to keep secret, tell me. I won't tell a soul, I promise.'

He shut his eyes tight and shook his head hard a few times. 'No. I won't.'

Lola nodded.

'That's great, thanks Hyatt,' I said as Lola slipped her red rubber band back on her wrist. 'Roach, could you?'

'Man, I am really, really sorry about this,' Roach said.

'It's...' Hyatt managed before Roach knocked him out cold with a right hook.

'Wow,' Casino said. 'Brains and brawn.'

'Where to?' I said to Lola.

'Through that door is the main hall, it's like a church or a ceremonial place. There's something going on there now that Hyatt thinks we shouldn't see.'

'Let's go and take a look then,' Minos said.

'The only thing is,' Lola said trailing off, looking worried.

'What?' we chorused.

'His head,' she said.

'I didn't hit him that hard, just in a sweet spot,' Roach said.

'No, inside his head,' she said. 'It's all, I don't know, it's like he's reciting something over and over. It's like he's been brainwashed. I thought I might be able to find out how he got here, but it's like he has a single train of thought and that's all.'

Poor Hyatt. He'd have a hell of a headache when they found him and not just from Roach. Lola and Casino led the way as we left the library for more dark hallways. These ones had light boxes with abstract images depicted as if in stained glass at regular intervals along their walls.

'It's supposed to be right at the end, just down there,' Lola said. 'We should come out on a balcony.'

'What's that?' I could hear chanting.

'I don't know,' Casino said. 'But there's the balcony.'

A warm glow was coming from up ahead, beyond a thick wooden balustrade. It was from thousands of candles below. The chanting was coming from a very large group of Galearii. We were a dozen metres above a large hall, panelled in the same dark wood. Another stained glass panel, lit from behind, covered the far wall but this one was huge. It felt like a church but there were no pews and no altar. In the middle of the hall were a dozen figures. They wore robes, the hoods pulled up hiding their faces. Most were in red but one wore white and another in black. One of them, in grey, was kneeling. His robe didn't have a hood. There didn't seem to be three of anything.

'Is that who I think it is?' Roach whispered.

'Tulan Haq,' I said. The Minister of Securities. A man to be feared.

'I've got a bad feeling about this,' Minos said. 'Very bad.'

'Thank you,' a voice from below said. It echoed, deep and sonorous, in the acoustics.

'You allegiance has been proven,' another said. The figure in white stepped toward Haq and gestured for him to stand.

'I have fulfilled harder tasks,' Haq said with a sibilance that set my teeth on edge.

'Still, you have earned your place,' a new voice with a West Atlantic accent said.

They all had different accents. The white figure was a New Europan. There was someone from New Canada, the vast country over the Atlantic. The other voice had been Oceanic, perhaps from the Sunken Islands.

'After the war you will guide the eastern Europan lands in the new ways,' the Oceanic one said, who I thought wore the black robes but it was hard to tell.

'Eastern?' Haq said.

'Not happy about that,' Roach said.

'I hear the food's terrible,' Casino said.

'Getting anything?' I said to Lola.

She shook her head. 'Only that Haq isn't happy. I think it's the chanting. It's interfering.'

'Or they're all brainwashed or something,' Minos said.

'Or they're Galearii,' Casino said. 'They don't speak English do they?'

'But these people do,' I said. For some reason we all looked at Roach for confirmation of this.

The candles shifted in an unfelt breeze, moving the shadows over the walls. I could smell incense. It was like the clash of two cultures. Here everything was old and reverent, removed, and at the docks and the huge loading bay everything was efficient and industrial. Perhaps it wasn't quite the coming together of two different worlds, more of two different times.

'Welcome to our number,' the figure in white said. He was the New Canadian, his vowels long and short in all the wrong places. 'Difficult times lie ahead. We may not have expected them so soon but we are ready. We shall prevail.'

'You may join the feast,' a figure in red said, gesturing to his left.

Tulan Haq had started as an Enforce assassin, somehow working his way up to become Minister of Securities. You could see his skill in the way he moved, he walked across the room like a tiger, poised and ready to kill. He was willowy and elegant. His face was flat and unreadable, legend had it that his finger prints had been removed. I would have bet everything I had that he killed Chichester Rhone with those bare, unidentifiable hands, that was how he'd proved himself to them.

'Bring in the initiate,' a different voice said. It sounded familiar, another minister perhaps?

Three Galearii emerged from beneath us and between them, his head bowed, walked Latch.

'The call to serve as Guardian to the Protector has been answered,' the black robes stepped forward. 'Those here present are asked to join as witness.'

Two of the red figures stepped aside and three Galearii glided forward. The middle one was carrying a long piece of black cloth. Latch knelt before him, it seemed strange, seeing him kneel like that. He was such a violent, sadistic creature that the only time Latch could be seen on bended knee was when he was checking to make sure someone's fallen body didn't have a pulse. Haq would kneel if it was politic to do so, Latch was too dumb to know about any of that. The Galearii put the cloth hood over his head. He didn't move or protest. The angels on the left and right moved away and the chanting stopped and was replaced with a horrible noise somewhere between a scream and a howl. It was Latch, his back was arched and his head thrown back, it sounded too high pitched to be coming from a man of his size. It was so loud instinct made us cover our ears. Whatever they were doing to him it sounded painful beyond all belief.

'No one's touching him,' Roach said.

'I think we ought to get out of here,' I said. No one protested.

The lift rose without a sound through the floors to level zero.

'Shouldn't we look round a bit more,' Casino said.

'What for?' Lola said.

'What else do you need to know?' I said. 'They can make Latch do that. Imagine what they could make you do.'

We glared at each other, the atmosphere in the lift thick with fear.

I made us sit down and come up with a proper plan. We watched the activity in the docking bay for an hour. It wasn't as populated as it had been in the day, but the night shift were rushing about at the same frantic pace. The enormous ship was there but only the huge crates were still being loaded. It was almost ready to leave.

'I'm not sure about this,' Lola said.

'It's our only option,' I wanted to shake the concerned frown right off her face. It was becoming her only expression.

'This holiday hasn't been the relaxing break I'd hoped for,' Minos said.

Casino found us some uniforms and we bustled onto the ship carrying assorted accessories that would make us look official and unapproachable. It was amazing what a couple of clipboards, a broom and a hazard warning sign could do. After much wandering around trying to find somewhere to hide we found a cabin that was used as a store room for unwanted mattresses and chairs, we concealed ourselves in there.

'We'll be home in no time,' Roach said as he perched on the end of a pile of foam mats, his knees around his ears and his head squashed into a strange angle by some shelves.

Minos was studying a small poster on the back of the door which indicated what we should do in the event of a fire. 'Safety first,' he said, copying the poster onto his tablet and blowing it up so we could see the tiny map in more detail.

The ship was part tanker, part cruise ship. It looked like the Galearii would be stationed on the fifth and sixth floors like cars in a car park. Below them were storage areas and the engines. Our floor, the fourth, was taken up with cabins. The other floors were made up of dining halls, recreation areas and executive cabins. There were some offices too.

'How long do you think it will take?' Lola said.

'Four hours,' Minos was pinching and swiping at his tablet. 'Maybe less.'

'They're just below us,' Lola shuddered.

It was an odd thought. I didn't want to just sit there and wait for us to dock back in the city. I wanted to be doing something, even if it was something futile, I just wanted to be occupied. Étienne had put me off sleeping. Before it had felt like the most effective way of passing the time without disaster striking, now it felt like a huge event I needed to dress for.

'I'm going to take a look round,' I said.

'I'm going to stay here,' Minos said, drooling over his hardware. 'The air is full of wonder.'

'I'll come,' Casino's disembodied voice said. 'But only if you pull your trousers up properly.'

'It's not my fault,' I said. 'They're too big.'

After much rustling and squirming Minos handed me his belt but it was too big as well. I rolled my waist band over a few times and exposed my ankles. I commandeered a cleaner's trolley we found at the bottom of a stairwell and pushed it into a tiny lift.

'Going down,' Casino pushed a button.

'We wanted to go up,' I said.

The lift doors opened and standing in front of us were the massed ranks of Galearii. Identical to each other, they stretched back in neat columns as far as I could see, like some complicated optical illusion. They just stood there, staring straight ahead with empty, quiet eyes. The only sound was their inhaling and exhaling in unison, it sounded like a gentle breeze playing through leaves. I pushed any button that would make the lift go somewhere else and with an amiable chime the doors closed.

'That was both weird and terrifying,' Casino said after a moment.

'Yes,' I said. 'Let's go and see what the humans are doing.'

'They're not human?' Casino appeared on the other side of my trolley.

'You know what I mean,' I said.

'But if they aren't human, what are they?'

'I'm not saying they're not human,' I said. 'I didn't mean it like that.'

'But what if they're not?'

'They must be a type of human. What else are they?'

'I don't know but I don't think they're human.'

'They're just different,' I said.

'Yes, they're different as in not human.'

'Maybe they're aliens,' I said. 'And this is a space ship in disguise.'

'Now is not the time to be flippant,' Casino said. 'Not the time at all.'

The lift doors opened and we braced ourselves, but all we found was a normal lobby area with four doors leading fore and aft on the port and starboard sides. I was enjoying the naval terminology. We picked a direction each and split up.

There were a couple of people milling about dressed as crew, but they all ignored me because I was a cleaner. I walked undisturbed, opening every fourth door with a duster in my hand to see what I could find. This boat was to the Vanessa what the finest filet mignon was to one of Clive's battered sausages. It was a floating town with a fancy hotel's detailing. I wheeled the trolley through a canteen and beside a screening room. The corridor passed between two huge rooms kitted out with everything a crew member needed to pass some recreational time. It seemed odd to be making such a short trip in a boat like this. Maybe they had taken longer trips, or had them planned. The people in the hall, with their international accents must have arrived somehow.

I found a medical centre filled with the kind of equipment sick people in the NW Sector fantasised about being hooked up to. All the beds were empty except one at the far end. I wheeled my trolley over and found a large man attached to bag of clear liquid and a machine that beeped at such irregular intervals there must have been something very, very wrong. He had two pieces of tape holding his eyelids closed. It was Latch. Whatever had happened to him it hadn't killed him but it had come pretty close. I was glad we'd made a run for it when we had, I couldn't imagine how they'd done that to him and I didn't want to know. I'd seen enough. The machine was monitoring all kinds of outputs. His heartbeat flickered across a screen in a pattern that even I could tell indicated he was a mess. He didn't seem to have any physical injuries apart from a dark bruise in the middle of his forehead, it was a strange shape and I couldn't work out how he'd got it. It looked most unpleasant, however it got there. I was tempted, for the good of my fellow citizens, to unplug him from anything that might be keeping him alive but I couldn't. I searched around for some notes or some kind of clue but there was nothing but a nil by mouth sign above his head.

If Latch was on the boat maybe Haq and the others were on it too. I didn't want to bump into them, not on my own. Maybe Casino would find them, he was a better candidate. I wanted to stay out of trouble, I didn't want to end up like Latch. Further along the corridor, which I figured I had already walked a quarter of a mile along, I found a suite of offices. They were like the offices in the south of the city, the same carpet, the same desks and swivelling chairs. I did some cursory dusting and sprayed some chemicals around some people who behaved as if I didn't exist until I found an office that was empty. I tutted as though it was the dirtiest place I had ever seen and closed the door. There was a computer on the desk and someone had been kind enough to leave it on. I introduced my wristset to the hard drive and started a download program that would copy all the information in certain key files then wipe all trace of my presence. The program worked by convincing the computer that it had come up with the command by itself so it used all the native packages. I was subjected to the most ridiculous countdown bar grinding out every solitary kilobyte as it turned from red to green. The pace was agonising. I was just thinking about whether this suggested this computer was, in fact, supplied by our very own government when the door handle moved. I pulled my wristset out, groaning because the data on it would be useless, stashed it back in my uniform and started out with my trolley. A man stood in my way.

'Do you mind?' I said. 'This trolley is quite heavy.'

'I bet it is, for a skinny little thing like you,' the man said. His muscles were straining to escape from his uniform. His head was shaven and his nose had been broken across the bridge and left to set on its own. 'Pass.'

'What?' I pulled myself up to my full height, there was no denying the skinny but little?

'Pass, show me your pass,' he said.

'Show me yours.' There was no way I could palm his pass, I was too far away and his pockets looked empty.

'Don't be smart with me,' he closed the door in a manner that I didn't much care for. 'I want to see your pass.'

'Well,' I said. 'I would love to show you it, but I don't have one.'

'You don't have one?' That had confused him.

'No, I don't have one,' I said. 'I know. Ridiculous, isn't it? I've been here five days already and they haven't given me a pass yet.'

'Oh, I see,' he said, running his finger around the inside of this collar as though it were very uncomfortable. Too tight, maybe.

'Yeah, I've asked them every day, sometimes twice a day, but they just don't seem to be in any hurry to get me one,' I put my hands in my pockets and stepped back.

The man's face was turning red now and he was clawing at his twisted collar. He started to struggle to get enough air.

'Can I get some help here?' I said under my breath. 'Someone?'

He was on his knees as his collar continued to tighten around his neck. His red face was taking on a purple hue. Puce, maybe.

'It's OK,' I said. 'Just let go and you'll be fine, it's just like sleeping.'

He fell forward on to his face and I let go of his collar in my mind. He was still breathing. I felt like I could do anything. The door opened and Casino appeared.

'Here you are, I heard voices,' he looked down. 'I was going to ask if you were all right.'

'I'm fine,' I said.

'Is he dead?'

'Of course he isn't dead,' I said. 'Help me hide him.'

'Can't you just think him hidden?' Casino said.

I tried as hard as I could but I couldn't thought-shift his body.

'It doesn't seem to work on people,' I said. 'Only on inanimate things.'

'Is he not inanimate?'

He moved after that, maybe it was all in my head. Like Lola's red rubber band. We put him inside a cupboard, he was a tight fit but we managed to get the door closed.

'Haq's on board,' Casino said. 'I saw him through a window. We can't get to him though, the security down there is immense. I didn't dare go any further.'

'I am so glad he's coming back with us,' I said. 'That makes me feel a whole lot safer.'

# Chapter Twelve

The rest of the trip passed without incident or interest. We skulked like the stowaways we were until we could hurry off the boat, still disguised as a team of cleaners. Only a handful of words passed between us. I was so relieved to arrive home I could have kissed the doorstep as though I'd just disembarked from an inaugural aeroplane flight. Early the next morning all the alarms in the hotel went off. Our trip had given us all the jitters so we'd decided we needed maximum security. Even a mouse walking across the road outside triggered a motion detecting camera that would record its every move until it moved away and stopped menacing us. The closer someone got the more they set off, someone had gotten very close indeed.

'It's all right,' Roach said over the intercom from reception. 'It's friendly.'

'Minos, turn it off,' Casino said. 'My ears.'

We staggered out into the lobby, all except Lola who was in the incident room catching up on news footage. I had been in the other kitchen fixing up an old cycle that was no substitute for my beloved bike but would have to do until I worked out what I wanted. I was trying to see it as an opportunity but it was hard. I made the bike that Tixylix had murdered myself, waiting with uncharacteristic patience for all the parts to arrive in my hot little hand. It was a labour of love and now it was gone. Haggia and Marshall Dailly were the cause of the disruption. They were peering into the camera lens at the main doors and mouthing excited words.

'We don't have audio on that,' I let them in. 'Start again.'

'Where have you been?' Haggia said. 'We've been looking for you.'

'What is it with you and setting alarms off?' Minos said to Marshall.

'Never mind that,' Haggia said. 'We want to throw a party for you.'

'Why?' I said.

Haggia hesitated. 'To welcome you back from where ever you've been.'

'Really?' I said.

'And we want to show you something,' Marshall said. 'You'll love it.'

'A party. That's a great idea,' Casino said.

'Yeah, because the last one went really well,' I said. 'What with all the car chasing and nearly dying and all that.'

'Don't let the great introvert put you off,' Roach said. 'We love a party.'

'We'll have it here,' Casino said. 'Is tomorrow too soon?'

'It's perfect,' Haggia said.

And with that it was all settled.

I sent out messages at nine the next morning and by eight in the evening the hotel's ballroom was a seething mass of friends and casual acquaintances. The ballroom was a huge space covering half of the second floor with a bar at one end and a kitchen space behind that. I always imagined ballrooms to be old and elegant but ours looked like it had seen better nights and plenty of them. Our living spaces were all shut off, apart from the rooms on the ground floor where people milled about seeking refuge from the dancing upstairs. The incident room was locked down with all the security we could muster. It had taken Minos and Roach hours. It was no quieter downstairs. We'd all perfected the art of shouting right into each other's ears and using precise sign language to make ourselves understood, so it wasn't communication that was the problem, it was more the physical discomfort. I didn't mention in the invitation that we'd returned from anywhere or that we were having a party for any particular reason so it become one of those parties that people had just because they wanted to. They're always the best kind.

'That's the rum everyone's talking about,' Marshall said, pointing at a crate on the floor.

The amount of booze piled up in the three different bar areas we'd set up would have made the Ministry of Welfare issue a flurry of health warnings.

'Is it?' I said. 'Well I never.'

'That means someone here knows something,' he said.

'But you're not here to work, are you?' Casino said. He had been glued to Marshall all night.

'No, you're right,' Marshall said. 'Tonight I don't care about the rum.'

'And tomorrow it will all be gone,' I pulled a bottle from the crate.

'Give a girl a refill, will you?' Clara Ten Below said, avoiding eye contact with Casino and Marshall in her usual manner.

'What are you doing here?' I said, obliging.

'Your friend invited me,' she said. 'Is that not all right?'

'Of course it's all right, the more the merrier,' that was the rum talking. 'Which friend?'

'That fat little gamer,' Clara said. 'I swapped an invite for an hour with the Vanguard.'

'With the Vanguard?'

'The real one,' Clara said. 'She played the real one. I thought her head was going to explode.'

'All right, Sorcha. Excellent party,' Loop said.

'Praise indeed.'

Clara took one look at Loop and melted into the crowd. He was an earthy outdoors type, geek repellent. He harboured bacteria that Clara would have known the names for.

'I was sorry you missed my birthday, it was pretty legendary,' he said. 'I heard about the flu thing you guys caught, sounded rough.'

Loop knew how to throw a party. I thought it was a myth that whenever Enforce turned up to arrest people at his parties they always ended up joining in, until I saw it happen, twice. We never had that problem at the hotel, from the outside it looked as boarded up as it ever did, even the sound stayed inside.

'Yeah, it was pretty rough,' I said. 'You got a drink?'

'Thanks but I'm rolling with a green and purple friend tonight, alcohol takes the edge off. You want one or have you had too much to drink?'

Loop also knew how to take, and make, his recreational drugs. The green and purple ones were excellent. I tried to calculate how much rum I'd drunk but failed to such an extent that we agreed I had indeed had too much to drink.

'How'd you go in the riots?' he said.

'We holed up here, mostly,' I said, almost letting slip that we'd been away.

'Queens got battered, but then it always does. The watcher balloons will be there for a while but Enforce have gone.'

'Good timing for them, wasn't it?' I said.

'What do you mean?'

'Great distraction from Rhone and Terminus taking over, don't you think?'

Loop tapped my forehead. 'Did you ever consider that you're a little bit paranoid?'

I chatted to him until his green and purple friend wanted to dance, by which time Massey had appeared wanting to hold court. It wasn't until Loop walked away I realised that the whole time we'd been talking he'd been standing there wearing a red t-shirt with Vanguard emblazoned across the front in blue letters. And I knew for a fact that Loop was as likely to be found in a game as I was. The Vanguard virus was mutating.

'All right?' Massey said.

I nodded, because I wasn't sure if I was talking to him yet.

'You're mad at me, aren't you?'

I nodded again.

'I'm sorry,' he said.

'What for?' I was talking to him I decided. 'Anyone can say the words.'

'For the Vanguard thing,' he said.

'That's all right,' I said. 'I'm getting sick of hearing about it.'

'I was going to ask you to get a copy because people were pestering me about it, but then it just arrived.'

'It just arrived?'

'Yeah, a courier brought it. For a minute I thought it was from you or Minos but then you always bring your own stuff, what with you being a courier and that, like you don't need to pay someone else to do something you are the best at, right? Right?'

'Did it come with a docket? Did you sign for it?' I enjoyed the compliment almost as much as the desperation that made him make it.

'No, he said it wouldn't be necessary.'

'Where was the courier from?'

'I don't know,' Massey said. 'Anyway, listen, I'm sorry.'

'Don't worry about it,' I said. 'It's fine.'

He grinned. 'I meant to ask you, what's a child link?'

'In what context?' I said.

'When I installed the game, it said it was establishing a child link. I've never seen it do that with you so I wondered if it was a new thing.'

'No, very basically, it's when you establish a link to another server and receive instructions or information from it. Like the other server is the parent and yours is the child. It definitely said child, not sibling or anything?'

'No, child link. Should I be worried?' Massey said.

'No, it's nothing,' I said. But parents would never listen to their children, that made this link useless for market research purposes, so what was it for? 'I can come and check it out if you want?'

'Yeah, OK,' he said. 'If you think you should.'

'Maybe, it's probably nothing.' I didn't want to make a big thing of it and spook him so I changed the subject and we chatted until he disappeared into the ballroom. I struggled through the people on the stairs to find Minos. He was probably outside or in the kitchen.

'So, I need to get some funds together and then I can put on the exhibition, just for friends you know, I don't want to get involved with all the new academy stuff, not now anyway. It's all so establishment,' Tex said.

Lola rolled her eyes at me. She was sitting on the worktop in the kitchen next to a languid young man who had draped himself around the fridge despite the fact that it was full of homebrew that people needed, some more than oxygen, and he was proving to be a very trying obstacle. There were not many people who managed the transition from their Riverside lives to new lives down with the underclass with the aplomb Lola had. Tex hated his parents and he had worked out that the best way to annoy them was to drive his scooter up to the NW sector and hang out with the downbeats and dropkicks there. As a downbeat dropkick I found his presence irritating and his trust fund infuriating. He was hard work. I always felt like I was on the receiving end of a very bad comedy routine. He didn't tell jokes, he deployed them. I was about to wander out of the kitchen to avoid Tex when he spotted me and made such a fuss about calling me over I felt like I'd need a very hot shower or I'd never been clean again.

'I didn't expect to see you here,' Tex said.

'No? That's weird, given that I live here,' I said.

'I thought you were in the Detention Centre,' he said. I'd never seen him look so serious.

Lola and I laughed long and hard.

'What made you think that?' Lola said. 'How funny you are.'

'My Dad said so.'

'And who's he?' I said.

'He's in the Ministry of Securities. He's Director of Enforce liaison,' Tex said.

'Oh, yes,' I stopped laughing. 'I remember now.'

'So?' Tex said.

'So what?' I said.

'So, what's with you and the Detention Centre?'

'Tex, you know that no one escapes from the Detention Centre,' I said.

Tex stood up and laughed. 'Yeah, and I guess if you had escaped they'd be looking for you everywhere. The last thing you'd want to do would be to have a party.'

Lola started swearing as soon as he was out of earshot.

'I have been wondering about that again,' I said. 'It is odd that they still aren't looking for me. You'd think after the film they would be.'

'Maybe they were and we were on Nexus,' Lola said. 'They were busy with the riots, remember? Maybe they've got more important things to do, what with Terminus new to the hot seat and the weird ceremonies and the like.'

'But if Rowling is looking for the five, and she thinks I'm one of them or I'm going to lead her to them, why isn't she looking for me?' I couldn't work Rowling out, she could have been another space alien for all the sense she made.

'Maybe she is looking for you, maybe she just isn't looking in the right places,' Lola said.

I made my way back upstairs to find Minos feeling exhausted and harassed by the endless tangle of maybe. I contemplated finding Loop and getting him to prescribe something enlivening for the remainder of the party, never mind the dangers of mixing. The party could go on for days they way people were settling in. I was just about to investigate the queue to the bathroom when I spotted Haggia sitting at the bottom of a flight of stairs. Haggia looked so sad I almost ran away in case it was contagious, but the rum told me I was a better person than that. Besides I wanted to ask her something. I approached her the same way I imagine I would have approached a poisonous jellyfish playing dead.

'Hello,' she said.

'What's up?' I sat on the step next to her.

'I'm tired. I've been...'

'What?'

'Nothing, it doesn't matter.'

'Is it to do with the Vanguard?' I said.

'How did you know?' she looked amazed.

I pointed at a badge she had pinned to her top. The logo was becoming familiar, everyone was in on the act.

'I'm trying not to play the games anymore,' Haggia said. 'I go to a group, I've got a sponsor. I get as far as step three and then I fall off the wagon and get run over by it again. I tried to get Gru to hypnotise me, but it didn't work. I just pretended it did.'

'Don't tell Lola,' I said. 'She thinks it's the band, but I think it's all in the mind.'

'Me too,' she looked miserable.

'There are worse things,' I said, closing one eye and examining the rum bottle which was almost empty. Odd. I must have spilt some.

'You don't play do you?'

'No.'

'If you did you'd know that there aren't worse things,' Haggia said. 'I'd rather be on homebrew or shooting up those industrials on that new warning poster.'

'Why do you play, if you hate it?'

Haggia got this strange look in her eyes, like something was hovering in middle distance, something amazing that only she could see. 'It's so real,' she said. 'It's realer than real.'

'What's the Vanguard like?'

'It's not like the other games.' Haggia said. 'The five are in it.' She lowered her voice. 'You five, or five very similar. It makes everything make sense. Somehow. I can't explain. You should play it. Just once. You'd understand everything.' Her eyes sparkled with a fervour I'd not seen there before. She gripped my arm hard with excited fingers.

I shook my head and offered her the last of my rum, I felt like I'd had enough for bit. 'Why did you open the shop?' I said.

'Now, that's a funny story,' Haggia said. 'I got a message from a long lost relative saying could I take over for the foreseeable future because they were sick. I said yes and they sent me the keys and all documents and here I am.'

'What's funny about that?'

'I don't have any relatives. They all died in the flood. There's only me.'

'Was this before or after the games?'

'After. I've been playing for years and years. I thought that the shop might help, you know, give me something else to do.'

So, Étienne had got Haggia through the game and Marshall through his job. Doodle had been other side, but we couldn't find any more out about that. What about Prophet? He was probably doing it for fun but whose story was he telling? Ours or theirs, I thought but I corrected myself hers or theirs. I felt like one of the pawns, but for the first time in my life it didn't bother me.

'It'll be all right,' I said, only half to Haggia.

'I'm sure it will be,' Haggia said, hauling herself to her feet. 'I hope so anyway. I would hate for anything bad to happen to you. Remember I'm here to help.'

I'd forgotten that Haggia was supposed to be a source of information, that's what Marshall had said too. She could tell you who had bought what from her shop and what had happened in the slice of street life she could see from behind her shop counter but we were far better informed. I had a theory that I found comforting. She wasn't giving information to us, she was gathering it, and then giving it to someone else live and direct in her beta game. Not to Rowling, or Enforce they were still a step behind us maybe even two, so it had to be Étienne. That was how she knew everything. Maybe it wasn't old magic, maybe it was newfangled data. Or perhaps it was both.

I found Minos smoking a cigarette behind the reception desk. He was sitting on the floor, hiding.

'Everyone is talking about the Vanguard,' he said. 'Everyone. It's doing my head in.'

'Is Prophet here?' I said.

'No. At least I haven't seen him. Why?'

'I want to ask him if he plays the games.'

'Don't you start,' Minos said. 'Vanguard, Vanguard, Vanguard.'

'Maybe I should play, just to see what the fuss is about.'

'If you go into that game, I don't know what I will do to you, but it will be horrific and life changing and we will never be the same again, you and me. Do you understand me? You stay out of all the games. You especially. More than anyone, ever. You'll be gone worse than Ginger Yates, far worse. Is that understood?'

I nodded and didn't push it. You didn't mess with Minos when he meant something that much. He'd put the thought right out of my head. 'Massey's installation of the Vanguard came with a child link,' I said.

'What to?'

'He doesn't know,' I said.

'So, now they're putting thoughts into people's heads instead of just taking them out,' Minos said. 'That's progress I guess.'

'I wonder if Lola can do that,' I said just to change the subject and then wished I hadn't.

'That doesn't bear thinking about,' Minos said.

The party went on for two days and in all that time no one slept and neither Haggia nor Marshall showed us what it was they had to show us. Haggia summoned us to the shop for show and tell once we'd all recovered. The streets were deserted, apart from a group of scrawny pigeons that someone had spattered with bright pink paint picking at a chicken kebab. There was something disgusting about that, like they were cannibals, it made my stomach churn. We walked up to Haggia's through the fine, strange smelling drizzle marvelling at how peaceful everything could seem.

'Where is everybody?' Lola said to Haggia as we all settled on various sacks and buckets. Marshall was installed behind the counter, in person.

'It's been very quiet for last couple of days,' she said.

'There's talk of a permanent curfew being imposed,' Marshall said. 'Maybe people are trying to keep their heads down.'

We've already got a curfew,' Minos said.

'Yes, but it's temporary,' Marshall said. 'This one would be proper so we'd all have to stick to it.'

We gave various snorts of derision, there was even a burst of cynical laughter. Last time we had a so-called proper curfew everyone made a point of staying out past it, even if they had happened to abide by the existing one. We weren't the kind of community to stick to anything, co-operation just wasn't in us. Besides we didn't differentiate between temporary and permanent anymore. The permanent was all too easily swept away.

'They're not happy, whatever's going on,' Haggia said. 'There's still a lot of murmuring about Chichester Rhone dying and Terminus taking over. And those people with the very blonde hair keep appearing, they've really upset people. Apparently, they're some kind of organised crime syndicate from way out East and now they're all over the news hanging out with politicians.'

'People think they helped Enforce kill Chichester Rhone and, to be brutal about it, he hadn't been in office long enough for people to hate him so they are very suspicious,' Marshall said. 'Some people are even saying that it was the gangsters in that clip wearing Enforce uniforms trying to set Enforce up. The chief executive of Enforce is going nuts about it.'

'Well, that film is a bit suspicious,' Haggia said. 'Don't you think?'

'It's wholly suspicious,' I said, intrigued that Marshall hadn't told her. 'Never mind a bit.'

'You are going to remember to show us whatever it is you have to show us, aren't you?' Lola said. 'The anticipation is killing me, it really is.'

Everyone was still being very careful of Lola. Stark remained in the Detention Centre as far as we knew and she wouldn't discuss it with anyone. She had set up a feed to capture all the news about it and we had all caught her checking it in secret. We figured that she checked it a few times a day. She must have taught herself how to do such a thing, she didn't know how to before and she didn't ask anyone to help her. Even I couldn't tell when she was being sarcastic and when she wasn't. She spent a good deal of the time on the verge of tears and I wished the others would stop being such boys about it. I didn't know how Minos could be so different with me, he was my favourite person to sob on but he was so awkward around Lola. It was most vexing.

'Of course,' Marshall smiled at her and held out his hand which to my surprise she took. He was good, I'd give him that. 'Step into my office.'

He ushered us all down the central aisle, past the shampoo and soaps, between some pasta that looked as though it might be real, to a very cheerful display with lots of figurines and small homemade pamphlets with comic strips. Some of the figures looked very familiar.

'Look, it's Casino,' Roach said.

It was. Casino was a small plastic figure about four centimetres high. He was wearing silver and grey. It was almost a very good likeness.

'Who's this?' Roach held up a larger figure.

'That's you, of course,' Haggia said. 'Can't you tell? Look you've got a book under your arm and everything.'

'There's one for each of you,' Marshall said. 'What do you think?'

Minos's figure didn't look all that much like him, he looked much more like a ginger ferret in real life but his miniature was quite handsome and the flames that licked his feet formed the small red base he stood on. His trousers were of the right bagginess. Tiny Lola had a very serious expression on her face and her eyes were neon green, from all the mind reading that she was engaged in.

'Sorcha is not this curvy,' Casino said. 'Sorry, but you're not.'

He was right. I wasn't. The model was much less stick-like than I was. The figurine was holding out her hand, palm skyward, I didn't have spooky eyes or anything. I flicked through one of the comics while the others chattered about their tiny likenesses. We were having marvellous adventures in the stories, saving the world and all sorts. At no point did anyone look terrified or feel guilty or burst into tears, it looked like great fun.

'There's a reason you don't look exactly like you do,' Marshall said. 'It's totally deliberate.'

'It's so you can still get around without being pestered,' Haggia said.

'Pestered?' I said. I was not a fan of being pestered.

'These are selling like they're going out of fashion,' Haggia said. 'I'm raking it in. The profits we will, of course, split between us.'

'You have quite the fan club,' Marshall said.

'Who's buying them?' Roach said, as though he thought those people might well be mad.

'Lots of people,' Marshall said. 'It started with a little animation that's very popular on the DarkNet and it's just spiralled from there really.'

'We've got to get more made,' Haggia said. 'People are loving your adventures.'

'Loving them,' Marshall said. 'I even did a little end of show piece on you yesterday. It was just a bit of fluff but you're news.'

'The Vanguard,' Minos pointed to a poster on the wall.

'That's right,' Marshall said. 'The Vanguard is coming.'

'To save the world,' finished Haggia.

'It's the game, isn't it?' I said. 'Not us at all.'

'Kind of,' Marshall said.

'Kind of?' Minos said.

'The thing is that this is beyond the game really,' Marshall said. 'It's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins now. We're just going with it.'

'So there are two Vanguards?' Minos said. 'One in the game and one in the real world?

Marshall looked confused. 'Kind of, they overlap. It's really complicated.'

'Do the characters in the game look like us?' I looked at Haggia.

'No, they look like whoever you're playing with. So, the telepath would look like me because that's who I play,' she said. 'And whoever you come across in the game, that's who you see. Or you see what they think they look like.'

'Why didn't you play me?' Minos said. 'I'm disappointed.'

'Hang on. What about rights?' Casino said. 'I have rights over myself, don't I? Even if I look like someone else, it's still me. I am the invisible one that stands beyond sight.'

'Of course you don't have any rights. But we don't know what's going on in the game, we only have second hand information and it varies from person to person because of the neural patterning. It's similar but not the same,' Marshall said. 'It's really hard to explain. And their prophecy isn't worded like Prophet's is.'

'Rowling's isn't either,' I said.

'Maybe we should just play it,' Roach said.

He got a truncated version of the lecture from Minos and that upset Haggia, who started trying to argue with him.

'I don't get it,' I said.

Everyone looked at me as though there was nothing to get.

'Tell me why I'm holding a tiny version of myself in my hand?' I said, holding my tiny plastic self up. 'Why is that necessary?'

'What is the most valuable currency we have right now?' Marshall said.

'Information,' I said.

'No,' Marshall said. 'Wrong.'

'Wrong?' Casino said. 'The courier in me begs to differ.'

'Misinformation is the most valuable currency we have,' Marshall said. 'It's worth more than information every time.'

'He's right,' Minos said.

'Yeah,' Roach said. 'The footage of Rhone's assassination is a good example.'

'You've seen the news, right?' Marshall said. 'It's wall to wall golden heads. The Administration class love them, but more importantly the Work and Labour drones adore them. And they've got the numbers.'

'People love having something to follow,' Roach said.

'Exactly,' Marshall said. 'And who can we follow?'

We all looked at him with blank faces. We didn't have things to follow. We'd always forged our own paths.

'No one,' Marshall said. 'And that needs to change.'

'So, we're giving people something to follow,' Haggia said.

'Did someone tell you to do this?' I knew who I wanted to follow and she was nowhere to be seen.

'No,' Marshall said. 'Like who?'

'A flyer came through about a manufacturer who was going bust and was doing a deal on model-making and we thought it would be a fun thing to do,' Haggia said. 'They're not going bust anymore.'

'And given they just tried to blame the assassination on the Vanguard, or a group like the Vanguard, we thought it was a great opportunity to cement the work we'd done with the film,' Marshall said.

'And the animation?'

'Someone sent it to me through work,' Marshall said. 'I got them to make a couple of changes and we uploaded it.'

'Who?' I said.

'Some new woman in the technical department, cameras and that. I've never actually met her. Never will. Apparently she got fired yesterday.'

'Can I have a copy of each of these?' Minos said, rummaging through the comics.

'Sure, you'll need to get up to speed in case we do any public appearances or anything,' Marshall grinned until he saw my face. 'Sorcha, I'm kidding. Seriously, this whole thing is working because people don't know you're real. Relax, everything's fine.'

'What do you mean, they don't know we're real?' Casino said. He would have liked being a celebrity. It was all right for the invisible man, he was the only one who could hide.

'The minute they know we're real they'll be disappointed, we'll never match up to our imaginary selves,' I said.

'And we'll be in a medical facility and experimented on to within an inch of our lives,' Minos said. 'No thank you.'

'We would last five minutes,' Lola said. 'If that. Seriously.'

'You said it yourself, Casino,' I said. 'Remember? Guinea pigs.'

We meandered back to the hotel talking about what other merchandise we should have. Casino wanted to design a range of t-shirts because he didn't like the ones people wore at the party and this prompted Minos to offer to design some underpants.

'Oh, no,' Lola held a length of red rubber in her hand. She had been fiddling with her band all morning and had worn it through.

In unison, the four of us produced a handful of red rubber bands from a pocket somewhere on our persons and held them out for her.

'Thank you,' Lola said, selecting one of mine and slipping it on her wrist.

We breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Immortalised in plastic and print we may have been, but the world was determined to carry on as if we were ordinary, less than ordinary. I was grateful. One of Casino's regular clients had got work so he pedalled off. Lola went off without saying where she was going and Roach went to the docks with Minos. I pulled a couple of licences that Elijah Blue was after from the system and me and the substitute bike made our way into the heart of the city to deliver them.

The cafe was busy. It wasn't like Greasy Clive's, Elijah served a more tasteful clientele and it could be quite a mixed crowd.

'New bike?' Elijah said.

'I don't want to talk about it,' I said.

'Then we won't,' Elijah said. 'Long time no see'

'I saw you at the party at our place,' I said.

'Yeah, but before that it was a long time.'

It was the night of Étienne's first delivery, it felt like a world away. I got the licences out of my bag and put them on the counter. Most things that were official and necessary were credit card shaped and the licences were no exception. We were plagued with bureaucracy, you couldn't move without it being logged on some system somewhere and you couldn't do anything else if it wasn't. And if there was a system entry for it, there was corresponding piece of paper. Not for nothing was the lead ministry called the Ministry of Administration.

'Coffee?' Elijah said.

'Please.'

I sat on a bar stool and watched as he started up the ancient coffee machine. Minos had fixed it for him a few times and a myriad of other people had also rummaged about inside it to get it going again. It was on its last legs but hanging on. As Elijah wrestled with its idiosyncrasies my eye wandered to the shelf above him where our five plastic replicas sat waiting for their chance to save the world. Elijah followed my gaze.

'The Vanguard,' he said. 'They're awesome.'

'Are they?' my voice didn't sound like my own.

'Yeah, have you read the comics?'

'No.'

'Seen the cartoon on the DarkNet?'

'No.'

'You should. They're great,' Elijah put a coffee on the counter in front of me. He'd fashioned a letter v out of the brown sprinkles that were supposed to be cocoa, whatever that was. 'That's what I want the licences for.'

'What do you mean?'

'I'm having a themed party,' Elijah said. 'Now the riots have finished.'

'Why?'

Elijah ducked down and disappeared behind the counter, I could hear him shuffling some paper around. He produced a crumpled comic, pushed my coffee cup to one side and put the comic in front of me.

'See?' he said, flicking through it and pointing things out. 'There's a riot and then they have a party. So that's what I'm doing.'

'I see.'

'It's a costume party. Loads of people are coming, do you want to?'

'No,' I said. 'No, I don't.'

I finished the coffee as fast as I could. I dropped in to see Haggia on my way back home, she was arranging a pile of cabbages and lettuces into a confusing mound of green leaves.

'I'm glad you're back,' she said. 'I forgot to give you this.'

'What is it?' I took the envelope.

'I have a strong suspicion that it's an envelope,' she said. 'Open it, they usually have things in them.'

'I know that,' I said. 'Who's it from?'

'You have to open it and find out, that's how it works. Someone slipped it under the shutter.'

I put the envelope on the pavement outside, with the side my name had been written on face down. Haggia and I hid out in the stock room and I peered around the door and through the shelves to watch the envelope open itself, millimetre by millimetre. Nothing happened. No explosion, no gas, nothing. I went to retrieve it. Inside was a scrap of paper torn from an old fashioned notebook with thin blue lines ruled on it.

The note read: Breakfast was nice but dinner would be nicer. When? Agent Tourniquet.

'First he tracks me down to Greasy Clive's,' I showed Haggia the note. 'Now here.'

'Stalker,' Haggia said. 'You be careful.'

'I think I'll be all right,' I said as I thought-screwed the envelope into a ball. 'He's just a puny human after all.'

'You're just a human. You're not immortal.'

'Well, I'm going to ignore him,' I thought-dropped the paper in the bin on the other side of the shop. 'Besides, he didn't give me any contact details.'

'Maybe he thinks you'll be able to track him down anyway,' Haggia took a carton of juice from the refrigerated unit and poured us both a drink.

'It's a wonder you make any money at all,' I said.

'I don't need to make any money. The books balance themselves,' she said. 'What's on your mind?'

'Not much. Those things,' I pointed at the aisle with the merchandise. 'I went to see a friend to give him something and he had all the figures. They were sitting there on a shelf behind his bar and I was sitting in front of the bar. It was weird.'

Haggia laughed. 'I bet it was. He didn't put two and two together?'

'No. I was sitting here and she was standing there and he never noticed.'

'See? You needn't worry,' Haggia said. 'Marshall's right. They're realer than the real thing.'

'Yeah, try being the real thing and see how it feels,' I smiled. 'I guess it could have been worse. He could have made four.'

'Is he having a party?' Haggia said.

'How do you know that?'

'Everyone is. You had a party, they're having a party.'

'But we really did have a party,' I said.

'Well, he's got to get his ideas from somewhere.'

'Who?'

'The kid that draws the comics. He's got a funny name. Like Mex or something. He's proper posh as well. He's got that super clean, smooth skin they all have. And a funny accent, like Lola's.'

'Tex,' I said.

'That's him. Do you know him?'

'Unfortunately. Is he making all the comics up?'

'No, Marshall tells him what to do mostly but Tex came up with this one and Marshall thought it was good. Besides Marshall can't draw. I asked him to draw a cat the other day and I thought it was an aeroplane. Why? Is Tex dodgy?'

'No, I think he's harmless. Listen, will you do me a favour.'

'Anything,' she said. 'Well, almost anything. Anything legal. Almost legal. Maybe. Depends what it is.'

'Will you make a model of Doodle?' I said.

'Doodle?'

'Yes, I don't have a photograph but I can draw him for you.'

'Who is Doodle?'

I took a deep breath. 'He was my friend. He got all mixed up in this and something happened. Something terrible.'

'And you feel bad about it,' she took my hand in a kind of maternal way. For once in my life I didn't rip my hand away and say something sarcastic.

'Yes.'

'Let me get you something to draw on,' she waddled off to the relevant shelf.

I drew a picture of Doodle. I drew him in a Wushu pose, holding the chopsticks that he'd used to kill the Enforce officer. He looked like a noble warrior.

'That's the noodle seller at Jubilee Market, it really looks like him. I didn't know you could draw,' Haggia said. 'I thought you were just a common delinquent. He went nuts on some Enforce officer and killed him, didn't he?'

'Yeah, he thought if he got himself arrested he'd be safe.'

'He's already a folk hero round here,' Haggia said. 'He'll be a great addition. Not to the Vanguard proper though. He's like supporting cast. We need some more of them, and some villains.'

'We've got plenty of them,' I said.

'Get drawing then,' Haggia said. 'Carry on like this you'll be helping Tex out.'

'I'd rather die,' I said. 'I'm not exaggerating.'

Without warning everything burst into chaos. Unlike the riot, which approached from distance, getting closer at its leisure, this particular hell arrived at high speed, sirens screaming. The street was full of cars braking, voices shouting and footsteps running. I heard a loud speaker click into life, clear its throat and announce a sector search. The lights in the shop went out along with the power. The hotel would go into its own lockdown. We'd been passed over in four sector searches, there was no reason to think that this one would be any more effective, besides even if they found us they wouldn't be able to get in. Inside the fake boards that fooled passersby, steel shutters would come down as extra protection. It had taken a whole year to get the hotel set up but it was time well spent. A sector search was a specific Enforce procedure during which they could round up people, possessions, contraband and anything else they didn't like. Normal laws were suspended. Enforce could shoot to kill without incurring any paperwork. The last search had been to celebrate some high ranking officer's birthday. Fifty three people died. They gave him bodies like they were the bumps. Sector searches were never announced over the receivers, so even we never knew when they were coming, they were arranged on pieces of paper deep in the bowels of Enforce HQ. Then they were run on the streets as word of mouth affairs, with Enforce officers so well drilled and enthusiastic that one could be launched almost before the ink on the paper was dry. There were hundreds of officers outside, lined up in the street behind the finest, state of the art riot gear Imagination Industries could supply. They were all dressed in black, faces hidden behind heavy helmets and breathing apparatus. And then Prophet walked into the shop as if none of it were happening.

'Hello,' he said, rooting through the apples. 'What's all this about?'

'Sector search,' I said. 'Have you not had one before?'

'No, never. I told you I'm not from around here,' he said through a mouthful of apple. 'They look like fun though.'

My wristset beeped. It was Minos.

'You OK?' he said. 'It's on the DarkNet already.'

'I'm fine.'

'No you're not. Where are you?'

'At the shop.' I resolved to practise my lying, my transparent honesty was becoming a handicap. Even Massey could almost see through me and he was the most gullible person I'd ever met. To Minos, who'd known me for as long as I could remember myself, I was an open book.

He got in some top notch swearing and even a trademark whistle before I lost the connection. I took the wristset off and kicked it under a shelving unit. I couldn't risk Enforce happening upon it in a sector search when it would be bagged and logged before we could blow it.

'Why are they doing it now?' Haggia said. 'Everything was so quiet.'

'Maybe it was too quiet,' said Prophet.

'You're not helping,' Haggia said.

There was nothing to do but wait for something to happen. We didn't have long to wait.

'Well, this is a pleasant surprise,' Vermina said. She'd breezed into the shop with a clatter of heels and a sweep of expensive coat. 'I'm sure I left you somewhere else.'

I shrugged.

'Don't be like that, darling,' she said. 'How's your head?'

'Fine thanks,' I wondered who she was with. Tixylix wouldn't be far off if this was official business. But it was Rowling who stalked into the shop like she was half human, half insect. A praying mantis, probably. Then some moments later Tixylix followed. He was wearing a bullet proof vest. Neither Vermina or Rowling had any armour on. They made him look like an amateur.

'Well, I better be getting on,' said Prophet.

'You're not going anywhere,' Tixylix looked at Prophet down the barrel of his sub machine gun.

'Right you are,' Prophet said. He sat on a sack of rice like the one Mr Gru was enjoying. 'I'll just stay here.'

'You,' Rowling pointed at Haggia. 'Over here too.'

Haggia perched on the tiny amount of sack that Prophet allowed her. I leant on the egg shelf trying to look bored. Outside Enforce officers were marching down the street, their boots heavy on the pavement.

'I do hope you haven't gone to all this trouble for me,' I said.

'I bet you do,' Rowling said, walking towards me. 'Bad news. We have.'

I thought she was going to walk right over me but she stopped two centimetres from my face. Her lipstick was bleeding into the wrinkles around her mouth. She was a smoker.

'You never told us you were so important, Sorcha,' Prophet said.

'I know, a sector search just for little old me, I find it hard to believe,' I said.

'You always were terribly modest,' Vermina said. 'Almost to the point of being secretive.'

'She can be very secretive,' Prophet nodded. 'Very mysterious.'

Rowling whirled around. 'Interesting. I had assumed you were a random shopper. Not an associate.'

Prophet laughed. 'Very good, very good. Keep up the pretence. As if you don't know who I am.'

She'd shown me his picture in the Grosvenor. She did know who he was. Why was she pretending not to? I couldn't believe she didn't recognise him. She was too clever for such a mistake.

Rowling paused, like she'd taken a mental stumble and needed to right herself. 'The thing is, Mr....'

'All right then. Yalta,' Prophet said, making a show of reading the name off a label behind the counter.

The thing is, Mr Yalta,' Rowling said. 'Sorcha knows something and she won't tell me. I find that upsetting.'

'Maybe she doesn't know,' Prophet said. 'She thinks she knows everything, but she doesn't.'

I glanced at Vermina. The merest flicker of concern had crossed her face. I wondered if she knew what was going on and if I was going to get any more assistance. I thought I might need it.

'And how do you know her?' Rowling said.

'Oh, we go way back. Way, way back,' he said.

'And how about you?' she asked Haggia.

Haggia had made herself even shorter than she already was, she had hidden herself behind Prophet as though she were sitting in the folds of his ragged robes. 'She shops here,' Haggia said. 'She is a customer, that's all.'

'This store is legitimate,' Tixylix said. 'All the records check out.'

'In that case,' Rowling said. 'You can go. You are of no interest to me.'

'What?' Haggia said.

'Go on, go,' Rowling said.

Haggia ran as fast as her little legs would carry her. When she was clear Rowling nodded to Tixylix and he started to bring the shutter down. I watched as the officers moving around with great purpose outside disappeared from top to toe. The shop was dark. Tixylix and Vermina turned on torches, the thick beams showing in the dusty air. Rowling got a small pen light out of her pocket and shone it into Prophet's eyes. He grinned.

'How far back do you go, exactly?' she said.

'Oh,' Prophet said. 'Days, maybe weeks.'

'So long?' Rowling said.

'It feels like longer, believe me,' he said.

'Why's he getting all the attention?' I said. 'I'm kind of hurt.'

'Oh, you will be,' she said. 'You will be.'

'You're going about this completely the wrong way,' Prophet said. 'If you don't mind me saying. There's no need to go the long way round.'

'Why don't you point me towards a short cut then?' Rowling said.

She stood between me and Prophet her hands on her hips, she seemed very impatient. Prophet settled back on his sack as if he was about to tell a bedtime story.

'You tell me exactly what you want to know and I'll see if I can help you,' he said. 'Because, believe me Rowling, I do want to help you.'

How did he know her name? I looked at Vermina, she was watching Prophet, like a snake watching a rabbit.

'Get me a chair,' Rowling said and Tixylix leapt to her aid. She sat down. 'OK, Mr Yalta, have it your way.'

Mr Yalta. The way she said it, so dry it was arid.

'Why are you here?' Prophet said. 'I'd have thought you were far too important. Or have you run out of minions?'

'I am a great believer in doing something yourself, if you want it done properly. From what I hear this one has been running around doing as she pleases for as long as anyone can remember, yet not once has she been prosecuted for anything. I find that suspicious.'

'So?' Prophet said. 'She's not that important, surely?'

'I thought that she had been given a piece of information, a prophecy if you will, and I wanted to know how she found out about it. Who told her and so on,' Rowling said. 'But this prophecy speaks of five people, warriors of a kind, and I have come to believe that she is one of them.'

'Oh, yeah?' Prophet said, looking at me then back to Rowling. He leant forward. 'You best hope she's not the one who can read minds. Otherwise we're all buggered, ain't we?'

I would have applied some serious violence to Prophet then but Vermina had me in an arm lock before I could move. The barrel of her gun was cold against my cheekbone. 'No,' she said, her voice so quiet I felt the vibration of the word rather than heard it.

'Thinking of running, Blades?' Rowling said. 'You won't get far this time. Which reminds me. The other thing I want to know. Who helped you escape? The noodle seller was an administrative error but you, you vanished.'

'One of the other five, I would think,' Prophet said. 'Or a couple of them. It probably wouldn't take the whole posse. They're getting quite the following out there. But then you know that don't you, that's what's making you nervous. The numbers aren't working out so well for you anymore.'

Vermina twisted my arm further up my back.

'Put her down, Vermina, she's not going anywhere,' Rowling said. 'You. Check the back is secure.'

Tixylix went out to the stock room, his torch swinging over the shelves as he went. His beam flashed over the Vanguard merchandise. He didn't see them, or didn't care what they were, in any case he didn't stop. I was convinced that whatever game Vermina was playing she hadn't invited her partner to the table, as usual. He shut the door on his way back in, took up position in front of it and nodded in his efficient, perfunctory manner.

'Maybe she's the pyromaniac,' Prophet said. 'And is there an invisible one? I can never remember.'

'Shoot her,' Rowling said to Vermina.

'What?' Vermina said, her face expressionless.

'Shoot her,' Rowling said.

'Don't shoot her, Rowling,' Prophet said. 'She knows everything you want to know. Shoot her now you'll never know even half of it.'

'I already know everything she knows,' Rowling said. 'Get rid of her.'

'She knows who the witch is,' Prophet said. 'You don't know that, do you? You want to but you don't.'

I told myself to be still and quiet, to not give anything away, but it was too strong. Everything on the top shelves exploded. Couscous and dried beans rained down on us. Then the next shelf went, sauces and oil ran down the shelves, spices burst into bright clouds. I could smell paprika.

'She's here,' Prophet jumped up and down. 'You've done it now.'

'Who's here?' Rowling looked frightened.

'The witch, the witch,' Prophet was giggling like a small boy. 'You've done it now.'

The Vanguard merchandise flew across the room, the box spinning in the air before sliding into a dark corner. The beams of the torches swung around the shop like wild searchlights.

'Do something,' Prophet said. 'Rowling, do something. Otherwise it'll be too late.'

But she didn't know what to do. She was confused. He wasn't on her side. He was on our side. 'Is it her?' she pointed at me. 'Is it?'

'I don't know,' Prophet said. 'She's a tricky one.'

Rowling was afraid. She was trying to hide it but a vein throbbed at her temple and gave her away. I could see Prophet through the gap between Vermina and Rowling's heads. They were both watching me but Prophet was dancing about as though he was in his own world. He stopped capering up and down and made a gun shape with his hand and pointed to Vermina then at himself. I didn't understand. He wanted me to shoot her? He gestured again. Vermina, then the gun shape, then himself. He wanted me to pass him her gun. It was still in her hand. I felt it in my mind, she didn't have a tight grip on it, I could slip it out of her hand and put it in his before anyone could move. What if he wanted to shoot her though? Then Tixylix was roaring something and hurdling over debris. The muzzle of his gun flashed orange in the half light as he sprayed the shutter with bullets, punching holes across it. The air was filled with shooting and shouting. I jammed my fingers in my ears and hit the floor as the shutter flew open, flooding the shop with light again. Vermina's gun fell to the ground in front of me as she and Rowling took cover. A red beam ranged through the shop and then a single shot rang out and Tixylix screamed as he fell to the ground.

I scrambled over to Prophet who was chuckling, bright arterial blood colouring his lips. 'Sorry, kid,' he said. 'Never been much good at charades.'

'He was going to shoot her,' Tixylix shouted to someone.

'I thought you were with them for a minute there,' I knelt beside Prophet.

'Me? Nah,' he coughed thick blood. 'It's time they knew is all.'

'Knew what?'

'You get me talking about that, I'll be dead before I get to tell you something you need to know,' he said.

'You're not going to die,' I said. 'I won't let you.'

The front of his robe was covered in blood. He should have been dead already. 'I don't think it's up to you. I'm not going to do the funny voice, if you don't mind.'

'I do mind,' I said. 'I like that voice.'

'There is time and then there is another time,' Prophet said, pulling himself to my ear with a huge effort that stole his breath.

'What? Is that it?'

'You're full of questions you you've no faith that's your trouble you will know near the end,' he said on his last single breath running the words together in his hurry to get them out before it was too late. Somehow he'd saved my life. And saved Vermina from being the one who'd taken it.

The shop was full of knees and boots. Someone pulled me to my feet.

'He was going to shoot her,' Tixylix was wailing, writhing on the floor, lentils and breakfast cereal sticking to him. They'd shot him in the thigh and he was only just bleeding but you'd have thought he was going to die. Like Prophet. 'He made this gesture with his hand and then pointed at Vermina. He was going to shoot her. She saw. She saw.'

'Did you?' Vermina said to me.

'Yes,' I said. It was almost true, I had seen and it didn't matter anymore.

'I have seven officers dead outside Ma'am,' a figure clad in riot gear said, its voice like a genderless robot's through the thick mask. 'They were unprepared for friendly fire.' It didn't sound very sure of itself.

'Get him some medical support,' Rowling said. 'He's just saved another officer's life. He's been injured in service.'

'Do you want me to take this one?' the robot said, pointing at Prophet. In the street behind him they were loading bodies into a squad van.

'Yes,' Rowling said. 'And clear the area. Of everybody.'

The officer bowed and scraped its way over to Prophet, as terrified of Rowling as Doodle had been. It just hid it better behind its armour and weaponry. They picked Prophet up as though he weighed nothing and put him in the back of the van with the other people Tixylix had managed to shoot. Vermina's face was a mask.

'I'm not sure what happened here,' Rowling said to me. 'But I will work it out and when I do you are going to be very sorry indeed. I will make sure of that.'

I laughed. I got right in her face and I laughed like I'd never heard anything quite so funny in my life. She didn't flinch. She had recovered her nerves.

'Get her out of here,' Rowling said. 'Vermina, you take her personally. Take her to the Tank. I'll meet you there in a couple of hours.'

'On my own?' Vermina said.

'You can handle her, if she bothers you shoot her. I've lost interest.' She hadn't lost interest, not now she thought I could lead her to Étienne. She just knew she was beaten, for the time being.

It was a short-lived, hollow victory. Vermina took me by the elbow and steered me out of the shop. We walked up the road to her car at such a pace we almost ran. She pushed me into the passenger seat and slammed the door. I could have run but I would only be dead or back in the same passenger seat. Vermina started the car and we pulled out just before the cavalcade of marked cars snarled up the streets. We accelerated through the road block which parted for us without query.

'He wasn't going to shoot you, I'm sure he wasn't,' I said. 'He just wanted me to pass him the gun.'

'It doesn't matter now,' she said. She was thinking about something, planning something.

We were driving down the main road into the city. She moved the car in and out of the flow of traffic, passing everyone.

'What's the Tank?' I said.

She hesitated. 'It's a very well kept secret. It's like the Detention Centre, except this one is more of a short stay facility. And even more unpleasant.'

'What do you mean?'

'You know Latch, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'He has applied to work there five times but they turned him down.'

'Is he back at work?

No,' she glanced at me. 'How do you know he's off sick?'

'I don't know, I just picked it up somewhere, I expect. You know what I'm like.'

She looked sceptical, she too saw me as an open book.

'Why did they turn him down?' I changed the subject. I couldn't tell her about Nexus.

'He always scores too high on the psychiatric test. They want a score of three or below.'

'Doesn't that make you a psychopath?' I said.

'Yes,' Vermina said. 'Of the worst kind, if there is a best kind.'

'Are you expecting Latch back?'

'No, he's very ill.'

'And what do these well-adjusted people do at the Tank?'

'They kill people,' Vermina said. 'I'm over simplifying it, of course. But you go in alive and you come out dead. If there's anything left to come out, that is.'

We drove on in silence for a while. I considered my options. I could crash the car. I could strangle her with her seat belt or something. Which would crash the car. She hadn't let the speed drop below seventy. She knew what she was doing. If we crashed, we would die. I didn't want to die.

'You're shivering,' she said, turning the heat on. 'You're in shock.'

'What are you playing at?' I said.

She ignored me, turning the car into a long bend. We were heading up to the Flyover.

'You can tell me,' I said. 'I'm not likely to live past night fall so what will you lose? Nothing.'

'I don't know where to start,' she said.

'Pick a point at random,' I said.

'Have you met her?' she said.

'Who?'

'The witch.'

'Yes,' I said. Even though Prophet would never get the chance to remember what he was supposed to tell me about the witch, I knew it must be Étienne. I couldn't be anyone else. 'A couple of times. Three times, actually but the second time she looked like someone else.'

Vermina said nothing.

'Have you met her?' I said.

'Why would I have met her? I'm not important, I'm not really part of what's going on. Rowling mentioned her the other day. I thought it was a codename. That's goes to show how much I know,' she took a ramped exit without slowing down, easing in between two cars. She still drove like I cycled. 'You know what I do know though?'

'What?'

'You're going to live past night fall.'

I doubted that. We were high above the city. She was still driving at speed, weaving in and out of the traffic. I gripped the edges of my seat remembering the crash and the pop the window had made. I wondered where the others were and what they were doing. They'd have assembled themselves by now but they wouldn't be able to get into the city. Even the underground access was inside the sector. They'd think of something. They had to. I felt the inside of my collar. It was empty. My wristset was in the shop. I was flying solo.

'You think I'm up to something,' Vermina said, breaking the silence. 'I've never been anything but precisely honest with you. Too honest.'

'Brutally honest, I would say.'

'It's everyone else I'm lying to,' she turned to me.

She looked at me for so long I want to scream at her to look at the road. But the car never faltered, never strayed from its perfect path down the centre of the lane. Then she looked away and I knew her well enough to know that there wasn't anything else coming on that particular topic. I felt sick.

'Why is everyone always talking in riddles?' I said. 'It's infuriating.'

'I bet it is,' she laughed. It was as I would always remember it. A nice sound that suited her.

We took the only vehicle bridge over the water, heading past the Project. Because of our angle of approach and the holographic shield, one moment the tower wasn't there and then the next it soared into the sky, banners and signs hung from its height like prayer flags. There used to be warning notices so drivers weren't shocked by its sudden appearance but someone stole them. Vermina took a sharp left onto a narrow pier joining the bridge to the Project, the only access.

'Are we here?' I said, puzzled. We couldn't be. The Project would never let Enforce set up a facility there.

'No.' Vermina stopped the car. She leant across me and opened my door. As she moved back to the driver's seat she stopped, she was so close our eyelashes were almost tangled. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and undid my seat belt.

'Run,' she said.

# Chapter Thirteen

I couldn't run far. I stopped at the end of the pier and watched her reverse the car back the way it had come without looking behind as she moved backwards, we looked at each other until the last possible moment then she drove off towards the south bank at the same terrifying pace. I stood underneath the tallest building in New Europa, seventy floors towering above me. The bottom floors of the building were flooded but the foundations stood firm beneath the water and the Project rose as defiant as a raised middle finger above the city. Its sloping sides had been designed to reflect the splendour of the mighty metropolis around them but all I saw reflected was the mule grey sky and the nervous shimmer of the holographic display. I couldn't stay in the entrance, I needed to look like a native or I'd be neutralised within five minutes, and I'd already been loitering there for four. There was a dilapidated rowing boat roped to a post at the end of the jetty, so I rowed it over to the entrance under the low roof, passing the submerged doors. I made my way up the stairs. They were slippery with mud and river water.

The Project had been colonised, like the underground towns and the roofs. But where the others adhered to some semblance of law, no matter how tiny, so they could have the few perks a citizen card afforded them, the Project had gone off the grid. Security crews roamed the building, taking out anyone who wasn't authorised to be there, there were eyes everywhere. Only the very brave, the very stupid or the very desperate ventured into the Project. I wasn't sure which one I was. I figured desperate. They'd even developed an economic system that used currency. They changed it every so often to prevent trading with outsiders, last time they were using bottle tops and paperclips. I'd found it odd until I'd realised that it was just as arbitrary as anything else. The rest of us were so attached to the idea of credit we couldn't let go and so the plastic dolls kept spinning the numbers for their paper overlords, and it was all the same as it ever was. At least the Project was making a break for it, trying to escape. I had one contact in the Project and I had to climb all the way up the fifty-sixth floor to find her or my desperation and lack of authorisation might be the death of me.

'What are you doing here?' Flo said through a crack in the door.

'I fancied a cup of tea and I was in the neighbourhood,' I said.

'You'd better come in then,' she took the chain off the door and let me in.

The view was worth the climb. I could see all the way out east to the sea, the broad stretch of grey water widening until, at the far edge of my sight, it stretched across the horizon. It was breathtaking. If I wasn't so fit from work it might have wiped me out after that climb. I'd never been inside Flo's flat before, I'd only ever gotten as far as the doorstep.

'What are you really doing here?' Flo sat in an armchair. Her long fair hair hung down to her elbows and she was wearing a pair of blue spectacles without any glass in them.

'It's a long story,' I said.

'Then I will open the biscuits.'

Flo was one of the only links that the Project kept with the outside world. In an emergency she could trade with people like us to get whatever the Project needed. We supplied her with information, so when they ran out of water we told her when a ship was coming in carrying water so they could trade with pirates and get what they needed. We didn't get involved with the rough stuff, they got their weapons and drugs from the Black Market, but not through Flo. She was a peaceful soul. I told her everything I could right from the accident, leaving out the more outlandish details. I told her about Doodle and the Detention Centre.

'I heard a rumour someone had escaped,' Flo said, pouring the last of the tea into my cup. 'Fancy it being you. If that gets out you'll be a legend.'

'I didn't really do anything, we had inside help.'

'Did you? Who?'

'I can't tell you that.'

'Anything to do with the Enforce car that just went screaming off to the south bank?'

'Yes.'

I liked Flo, she was sharp and assumed you were too. You could have a conversation with her in half the time it would take with someone else.

'That caused some consternation, security thought you were Enforce but I disabused them of that notion.'

'Thank you.' Of course, they would have been watching me the whole time.

'How are you getting back?'

'I don't know. I need to speak to Minos.'

'They're on their way.'

'How do you know that?'

Flo opened a cupboard in the kitchen and inside were eight small monitors showing either end of the bridge, the entrance to the building and various other points of interest. One of the screens showed an endless scrolling of green letters, it was various groups inside the project communicating with each other. I couldn't follow the code, it was encrypted.

'I told them you were here and to look out for other friendlies,' Flo watched the code as it made its way up the screen, her eyes moving over the letters and numbers with an easy comprehension. 'I don't know how they knew you were here. They're having a break on the twenty-first floor.'

'That'll be Minos, he's taken up smoking again.'

By the time they knocked on the door Flo and I had finished another pot of tea and half a tin of homemade biscuits.

'You're very tall, aren't you?' Flo said as Roach ducked to get in the door.

'I guess so,' he said. 'I'm used to it.'

'We heard about Prophet,' Lola said. 'They lifted the lockdown because of the shooting, Enforce were furious about being shot at.'

'Now they know how we feel,' I said. 'How did you know I was here?'

'Tracking device,' Casino said.

'Where?' I felt about in my collar for the pin, in case I'd missed it, but there wasn't one.

'Vermina's car,' Minos said. 'It's still there from way back. We watched her pull in here and figured she must have dropped you.'

'Where was she supposed to take you?' Lola said.

'The Tank.'

'The where?' Flo said.

'It's a secret, apparently.'

'Does it sound frightening?' Roach said.

'Yes, it does.'

'Who's Vermina?' Flo said.

'Enforce, third tier,' Casino said.

'Second,' Minos said. 'Promoted a short while ago.'

'Your woman on the inside I take it,' Flo said. 'Nice and high up. Can I borrow her?'

'No,' we said in unison. I mumbled something about it being complicated and we made a dash for it soon after that.

Halfway home we pulled up at some lights in the van and Patois, a fence we used for old electronics, pulled up alongside in his day job tro-tro. He tapped on our window and I wound it down.

'How is the day?' he said in his sun-drenched accent.

'Fine, fine,' I said. 'You?'

'Very fine,' said Patois. 'You hear the news?'

'What news?'

'Tulan Haq is dead.'

There must have been a dozen people crammed into the back of his tro-tro and every single one of them starting cheering and stamping when Patois said that. We sat at the green light and watched them bouncing as he drove off. Minos whistled and we all gave a sage nod or two.

Back home we sat around watching the news about Tulan Haq. He had been shot in the chest during his attempt to kill Audi Terminus. He was a power crazed maniac according to an aide to Terminus. There was no comment from anyone on Haq's side. Hatred for him was universal so he didn't have a side.

'Well, that's a tangled web,' Minos said.

'Quite,' I said.

'But why would he kill Terminus?' Lola said.

'Maybe he didn't want Eastern Europa,' Roach said. 'It's more likely Terminus just had him killed. He was on Nexus and Terminus wasn't. Maybe that was the problem.'

'Perhaps Terminus killed him for the Galearii,' Casino said.

'I bet you that Haq killed Rhone and that's why the Galearii were giving him Eastern Europa,' I said. 'And Terminus got the nod instead of him and Haq tried to kill him. And it really was self-defence.'

'You think this might be the truth?' Casino said. 'Amazing.'

'Either way there's no Head of the Security Ministry,' I said. 'That's an interesting problem to have right now.'

One of the computers signalled that we'd received a message. It was Marshall, he wanted to come round, he had information. We indicated that we would be delighted to receive him. By the time he arrived the incident room was bang up to date with all the developments. Every single detail was up there. If there were any more developments we would have to expand into another room, even the ceiling was covered in bits of paper and string. We were thorough but not very discerning.

'I have got some great news for you,' Marshall said. 'But first I am pleased to say we've got new distribution in the counties. We are selling Vanguard merchandise all over the city and outside it too. As well as on the web, the DarkNet and even the television.'

'How's Haggia?' I said.

'Fine. Why?' he said.

'Given that Prophet was killed in her shop this morning I thought I'd ask,' I said.

'That's what I'm here about,' Marshall said. 'Very, very sad news that. He was a funny little chap, wasn't he?'

'Hilarious,' I said.

'The thing is, news of his unfortunate and brutal death has spread like wildfire and your fans are devastated,' Marshall said.

'Are they?' Lola said.

'Yes, he was a very popular ally,' Marshall said. 'We were going to make a figure for him, as you know Sorcha, but we'll speed that up now.'

'Doodle's getting one too,' I said. It seemed only fair that I got a model for everyone I got killed.

'Good idea,' Minos said. 'Prophet's in some of the comics already.'

'Yes, his finest hour is in The Vanguard and the Vertiginous Villain where he saves Lola with a key piece of information about the villain's weakness in the nick of time. Lola is very popular with a certain demographic.'

'Which demographic?' Lola said, eyebrow raised.

'Oh, our older male readers, they really love...' Marshall shut his mouth seeing the look on Lola's face.

Minos must have been feeling lucky given that he sniggered.

'Can we do anything useful with this fan base?' I said.

'Yes, they'll spread messages, protest, all kinds of things.'

'Even though they think it's not real,' Roach said.

'Who said they think it's not real?' Marshall said. 'There's more than one type of real you know.'

We all looked at each other, confused.

'This whole thing depends on them thinking it's real. It is real,' Marshall said. 'Look, leave it to me. I've done lots of research, it'll be fine.'

'You said it wasn't real,' Lola said.

'I think it will be fine too,' Casino said because he was biased. At least Lola and I managed to keep our romantic interests separate from professional business. Most of the time. At least Lola managed it.

'Excellent,' Marshall said.

'The minute someone stops me and asks for my autograph I will break all of your ribs without even touching you,' I said.

'Can she do that?' Marshall said to Casino.

'She strangled a guy with his collar the other day,' Casino said. 'I wouldn't risk it if I were you.'

'You strangled someone?' Marshall looked amazed.

'Only a little bit,' I said. 'He wasn't dead or anything.'

'That is so cool,' Marshall said. 'I must tell the guy that writes the comic strips.'

'Tex,' I said.

'Oh dear,' Marshall said. 'He wanted that to be a secret.'

'Why?' Lola said. 'Because we would complain bitterly about it?'

'No, because his father will stop his allowance,' Marshall said. 'You're not going to complain are you?'

We ordered some pizza and kicked back in the pool room. Marshall was terrible. I wasn't allowed to play due to my extraordinary advantage so after I while I got bored and went to mess about on the DarkNet. The main hub of our technological operation had been a little bit neglected since the incident room appeared on the scene. It was like a new kitten had arrived and no one was interested in the mangy mutt anymore. One of the older monitors was scrolling around a map, a little red dot flashing in the middle. It was Vermina. Minos had left the tracking system running. She was driving along the main city road out of the Cathedral Quarter, towards the Trafalgar Wharf with its spooky submerged statues. The dot stopped flashing and held steady by the Hippodrome. She had parked the car.

'I'm going out,' I said, leaning on the doorway of the pool room, watching Roach sink the black to beat Minos again. I was trying to appear casual.

'Alone?' Roach said.

'Yes, why not?'

'Wait,' Minos said. 'You aren't going anywhere without a new wristset and a tracker and that's only for starters.'

I pedalled up the road with enough hardware on me to occupy five different monitors and two digital receivers. According to my tablet Vermina's car hadn't moved. The bike lifted off the pavement and rose into the failing light of the evening sky. Enforce were still watching with a little more focus than usual so I kept close to the buildings, speeding past open windows as people tried to get some air circulating. A pack of dogs ran down the street below me, they were a strange mixture of pampered house breeds and street fighting mongrels. They were evolving and adapting to their changing circumstances since the flood faster and better than people were. They barked up at me as I left them behind. I touched down around the corner from the car. It was all locked up. I could have broken in but there didn't seem to be much point. I considered waiting for her by the car but it was kind of hard to decide to wait when I didn't really know what I was waiting for. I was looking for her, so that was what I would do. My wristset bleeped. It made a different sound from my old one so for a split second I wasn't sure what it was.

'Sorcha,' Minos said, sounding much clearer than he did on my old set. 'Why are you looking for Vermina?'

'I'm not.'

A collective sigh came over the tiny speaker.

'Now is not the time for a liaison.' It was Casino, who was a fine one to talk.

'I am not looking for Vermina,' I turned my back on her car.

'Why not, have you found her already?' Minos said.

'I'm just getting some fresh air,' I said.

'Well,' Casino said. 'Your little tracking signals look very sweet on the monitor together. All blinking in time and everything.'

'I'm going now,' I said.

'Stay in touch,' Minos said. 'You've escaped twice now. I would hate for you to run out of luck. Really, really hate it.'

I promised not to do anything stupid. Anything stupider. I secured my bike, climbed up a drainpipe and scaled the ornate plasterwork that clung to the building like icing, thinking that up on the roof I'd be able to see better. Plus, if I had left my car there that's where I would go, upwards, there wasn't any other direction of interest.

I walked through the rooftop settlements towards the Old Coliseum, the city appearing in the cracks between tents like a game of peek-a-boo. The river was at low tide, I could see the heads of statues peering across the dark water, waiting to be submerged again. The low and high tides were another thing the Ministry of Environment and Conurbations couldn't explain. They tried to say that the tides were random because the moon had also broken but when everyone was sceptical about that, they invented some new theories about why they didn't understand it just to make themselves feel better. The tents thinned out towards the square as the roofs sloped up and down marking the old gallery buildings. I walked along the top of a low stone balustrade, the city streets far, far below.

'You'll fall,' a voice said.

'I'm looking for you,' I said.

'You shouldn't be looking for anyone,' Vermina stepped out from the shadows. 'You should be safely hidden away somewhere.'

'Don't worry about me,' I jumped down onto the roof. 'I'll be fine.'

She had a black eye and the bridge of her nose was cut and bruised.

'What happened to you?'

'I told them you overcame me and escaped,' Vermina said. 'You managed to slam the brakes on at high speed and I hit my head on the steering wheel.'

'Don't you have an airbag?' I said.

'This was the airbag.'

The moon was low in the sky, a bright scythe that hung just above the rooftops behind her. She sat down on some steps leading up to a fire escape long since boarded over.

'Why are you looking for me?' she said.

'To say thank you,' I said. 'I didn't expect to see nightfall.'

'You're welcome,' she gave a wry smile.

'Why did you let me go?'

'That's easy,' she said. 'The same reason I let you go the first time.'

So, we were playing that game. I sat on the step next to her.

'I can't tell you anything more,' she said.

'Anything more about what?'

'About Rowling, about Tulan Haq, you know he's been killed I take it?'

'Yeah,' I said, holding up my hands. 'It wasn't us.'

She laughed, making me smile.

'Don't tell me anything then,' I said. 'It's OK. I don't expect you to.'

'Thank you,' she said.

'I have got one question though,' I said.

She looked serious.

'Why did you let me go the first time?'

'The same reason I let you go the second time,' she said, lacing her fingers together over her knees and leaning back.

'Ah, I see,' I pondered for a moment.

'Yes?'

'So, why did you let me go the second time? I can keep this up all night.'

'Technically, you escaped,' she said. 'And I don't have all night. I'm waiting for a call.'

'Anything nice?'

'No. Work. I am in not trouble exactly, but something very similar.'

'You're in good company.'

'If I were in as much trouble as you were I'd run away.'

'Tried that.'

'What happened?'

'I ran right into trouble,' I said. 'What are you doing up here?'

'I don't know. Thinking. Hiding.' Her communications unit signalled a call and she stood up and walked a little way off. 'OK,' she said. 'I'm on my way.' She closed the call and looked at me. 'Well, this has been lovely but it seems I must go.'

'Goodbye then,' I said.

'I assume there's a tracking device on my car,' she said.

'Yes. I'm not sure where it is though, we haven't used it in a while. I can't even remember why it's there.'

She looked at the ground for a while then said, 'I sometimes think that somewhere in another world we're very happy,' she said. 'Do you ever think that?'

I pretend I need to think about that for a moment before I answered. 'Of course.'

She turned and walked away. 'I think you're going to be the death of me,' she said over her shoulder.

I watched her go ignoring the insistent demands of my wristset as long as I dared. It was Minos again.

'Sorcha, did you find Vermina?'

'Yes, why?'

'That call she just took, it was an order from Rowling's office, something's not right.'

'What?'

'We don't know but I think,' he hesitated. 'Either she's up to her ears in it and we're as good as dead or it's a trap and she's as good as dead. And it wasn't on an encrypted line. You stop her. We're on our way, we'll find you.'

The connection dropped out. I felt like I only had half the information I needed but I ran after her anyway. She hadn't got far. She was making her way through some shop tents that had shut up for business, the day's rubbish piled up outside them.

'Hey, wait,' I shouted. 'You forgot something.'

She turned, feeling her pockets. 'What?'

'Hang on.' I knew her well enough to know that I'd have to play it as though she was up to her ears in it, if I told her she was walking into a trap she would run into it just to prove she wasn't scared. And she could have been in on it, no matter how much I would have loved her not to be, I had no idea. She turned to leave, knowing she hadn't forgotten anything, but a pile of boxes fell into the path, blocking her way. A small hurricane of debris whipped up and in the confusion of plastic bags, cartons and cans I was next to her before she could get any further. The tarpaulin on the tents around us snapped with menace in an invisible wind. We looked at each other for a moment. Then she went for her gun. I don't know why, training maybe. The gun wasn't in its holster where she'd left it. It was in the air two metres above her head.

'I guess I'm the one that moves the earth,' I said, with one of my most infuriating grins, the one that used to drive her mad.

I stepped back and her fist flew passed my nose. 'Missed me.'

'It's not what you think,' she said.

'You don't know what I think.'

I was on the ground then, she'd tripped me somehow with that annoying martial arts training they all have. She had me pinned down, I could only move my right foot and my left hand. Under different circumstances it would have been an entertaining way of spending some time.

'Didn't miss you,' she said.

'Why are you meeting Rowling?'

'Because she's my boss,' Vermina said. 'I have to do what she says, that's how it works. You probably wouldn't understand that though.'

'Probably not,' I thought-pressed her gun to her temple.

Neither of us moved until Vermina let go of me and raised her hands above her head.

'All right,' she said as though her mouth had gone dry. 'Now what?'

I marched her down to street level pointing the gun into her back from my pocket like I'd seen a guy do during a very exciting robbery I'd watched unfold near Elijah's. We got in the car and I made her drive at a sedate pace still pointing the gun at her. I found I was too angry to talk to her without really understanding why. Somewhere in another world, she said. She was Enforce through and through and she could have been so much better than that. She knew Stark, she could have been an Academic, that would have been better. Deep down underneath everything was my disappointment, not in her but in myself. I needed to move on and get over it. She'd turned my heart to sand and I kept letting her kick it in my face. I was better off on my own. The problem with love is that it's impossible to work out what it is, only what it isn't. And what good is knowing that?

'Where are we going?' she said.

'We going to a storage facility I sometimes use.'

'What do you store there?' she said.

'Things I don't want anymore.' Who was I kidding?

We drove in silence until I told her to turn off the main road right on the south edge of the NW Sector. In its heyday the area would have been called a light industrial estate but times had changed and it had become an abandoned waste ground with some crumbling buildings scattered around not doing much. There were a few cars parked up, some in use and some abandoned. We walked up to the top of the tallest building. We'd taken it over a couple of years ago to store stuff but now we had such a fast turnover that there was enough room at the hotel. The top floor, only four floors up and affording no view at all, was a large open space but one end had been closed off into cubicles. Most of the windows had no glass in them, or their panes were cracked. Various relics from the office days lay around. The main staircase was on one side through some double doors hanging off their hinges. The top of a fire escape outside was just visible over the cubicle partitions. Most of the lights had working bulbs in them and they blinked as I woke them.

'Now what?' she said again, like she expected me to have some sort of plan.

A chair made its way over to her and invited her to sit down by hitting her in the back of the knees. She crumpled into it. I looked around for chair for me and thought-moved it over. I sat opposite her and wondered about my next move. And then she laughed.

'What?' I said.

'Nothing, nothing,' she said, still laughing.

'I don't think you ought to be finding anything amusing,' I said.

'I don't. It's just you. You're so...'

'What?'

'Where's the gun?' she said.

I felt about my pockets.

'It's in the car,' she said. 'You left it behind.'

I smiled. It was pretty ridiculous. 'I'm not very good at this,' I said.

She stood up. 'What if I run?'

The door closed itself and the chair insisted she sat down again. Our knees were touching.

'What if I...'

'What if you what? What are you going to do?' I said.

'I could distract you,' she said.

'Is that what you're trying to do?' The sudden tension could have raised the mercury in any thermometer.

'Yes,' she said. 'It is what I'm trying to do.'

'Is it not traditional to tie people up in this situation?' Casino peered around the door.

'She was, I guess she...'

'Escaped?' Lola said.

'Exactly that,' I said. 'Escaped.'

'We'll tie her up again then, shall we?' Casino said. 'What did you tie her up with?'

'Things I found.'

'Sorry about this,' Minos said to Vermina. 'We don't usually go in for kidnapping.'

'No,' she said. 'You're more larceny, espionage and piracy. Right?'

'Hey, you missed some of our greatest hits out there,' Minos said.

Roach had attached Vermina to the chair with some cable ties in a double rush.

'I do apologise,' she tested their tension.

Minos scanned her with a device detector. It gave a baleful moan to draw attention to her communication unit but other than that she was clean.

'You're travelling light,' Minos said, gesturing to me to get the unit out of her inside pocket.

'I was off duty,' she said. 'As much as I am ever off duty.'

'No one's tracking you?'

'Only you.'

'Would you excuse us a minute?' Roach said, pulling me after him.

We stood in a huddle near the cubicles at the other end of the space. Vermina sat very still, looking down, her chin almost on her chest.

'Right,' Roach said. 'In ten minutes she should be where she was supposed to be before you brought her here. How did you do that by the way?'

'Magic carpet,' I said.

'Nice one,' Minos said.

'Her car's round the back,' I sighed.

'Is there anything you need to tell us?' Roach said.

'I don't think so,' I felt an outright denial would be a lie.

'Because if this is at all complicated,' he said. 'You can tell us.'

'It's not.'

'Honestly, it's fine,' Minos said. 'We'll work round it, it's only fair.'

'Last chance,' Lola said. 'It's now or never.'

'I honestly don't think so,' I said. I didn't know what to say, the situation was the same as it ever was.

'OK,' Roach said. 'We figured we don't know if she was heading into a trap so we'll just assume she wasn't because that's less complicated and it's safer for us to assume the worst. This is the plan we came up with in the car. We use her as bait. Get them to come and get her and then follow them to wherever they go next because we're bound to find something new out. And while we're waiting we can have a little chat.'

'What do you think?' Casino said.

'I like it,' I said. They thought it would be safer to assume she was against us. I didn't like that bit. It was fine for me to do that, but not them.

'Excellent,' Minos said, took the unit from me and pulled the back off it. 'Ready?'

'Do it,' Casino said.

Minos slid the micro card out of the back of the unit. Somewhere an alarm would go off and the temporary replacement for Tixylix would know that Vermina was in trouble and also know where that trouble was, accurate to within two metres. We made our way back to our hostage, along with four extra chairs that followed behind us like eager puppies. We all sat round like some therapy group. Vermina would be running the interrogation handbook in her head, they were all trained to interrogate and to evade questioning. At Vermina's level she would be well versed in holding out under serious torture, and would have mastered of some techniques of her own. I remembered that she could be very handy with a length of rope.

We sat there looking at each other for a bit. Vermina looked from me to the floor and back again but never once looked at anyone else.

'Right,' Roach said. 'Who wants to go first?'

Everyone looked at the floor then.

'This is ridiculous,' Lola said. 'Why don't I just read her mind?'

Vermina looked at her then. She didn't say a word but anyone could see what she was thinking. She had just realised that she was sitting down with the fabled five. The very people they had been looking for. She had just realised how obvious it was. And I realised how wrong everything could go.

'That's a good idea,' Minos said. 'Then we don't have to pull out her fingernails or anything.'

'Her fingernails?' Casino said.

'That's what they do isn't it?'

'Probably,' Casino said.

Lola pulled her red rubber band away from her wrist.

'Don't,' I said. 'Please.'

'What?' she winced as the band snapped back against her skin.

I gestured for her to follow me out of earshot.

'Why not?' she said. 'It'll be easy.'

'I really don't want you to,' I said.

'Why not?'

'Because.'

She put her hands behind her back and gave me a very stern look. 'You don't have to tell me, I can just look.'

'You wouldn't,' I said. It was going to sound ridiculous.

'Try me.'

I couldn't see her hands to tell if she had her band on. She might already be in my mind, I couldn't feel anything, but at least then I wouldn't have to tell her.

'Do it then,' I said.

'Really?' she looked unsure.

'Do it.'

I thought about the three times she'd let me go. I thought about dark curls and blue eyes. I thought about not knowing and not wanting to know and about the impossibility of everything.

Lola's eyes were wide with surprise. 'You don't want to know how she feels?'

'What good will it do me?'

'I won't tell you,' she said. 'I'll just get the information we want and ignore everything else'

I looked sceptical. Lola was too nosey for such restraint.

'Yes, all right. I just won't tell you,' she said. 'How about that?'

'But you'll know, and if you know I'll have to.'

'I won't tell you even if you beg,' she said.

'Then I'll hate you,' I said.

She put the band back on her wrist. 'OK, no mind reading.'

Minos was making a small flame walk over his knuckles and Casino had disappeared.

'They're showing off,' Roach said. 'I'm not sure it's a good idea.'

'I wouldn't worry,' Vermina said. 'I'm not going to live past daybreak.'

'Why not?' I said.

It was an unpleasant look but I deserved it. 'As you are clearly completely inept at this, which is quite touching by the way, I'm going to do you a favour,' Vermina said. 'I'm just going to tell you what I know.'

'What a relief,' Minos said. 'I've never pulled anyone's fingernails out before. I wasn't keen.'

Vermina's information was, for a change, very straightforward. Rowling worked with the Galearii, which was the same as working for them, because they had all the power and all the ideas. But as far as everyone was concerned she was working with Enforce to protect the huge Imagination Industries investment in their business. Vermina and Tixylix had been assigned to work as her bodyguards because she was very valuable to both parties. Vermina didn't know what the Galearii had to do with Imagination Industries but I suspected that that was where Imagination Industries got their money from. They had sold their soul to someone worse than the devil.

'I don't think she trusts me,' Vermina said.

'Why not?' Minos said.

Vermina looked at me. 'Her.'

'What happened to Tulan Haq?' I said.

'Exactly what the news says. Haq was trying to kill Terminus. Haq always had his own agenda but once he worked out that he was behind Terminus in the queue he went rogue. Particularly because he'd killed Rhone for them in the first place.'

'We guessed that,' Roach said.

'He did it wrong though. Rhone was supposed to oversee the dismantling of the Academies before he went. That way anyone who didn't like it, and some well connected people certainly wouldn't, they'd think it was Rhone's fault and Terminus would have a clear run. People think its suspicious now.'

'Haq was a liability?' Roach said.

'Yes, he's always been a loose cannon but he was getting in the way of the plan,' Vermina said. 'Like you are.'

'What plan?' Casino said.

'They're going to start again.'

'Start what again?' Lola said.

'Everything,' Vermina said. 'Wipe the slate clean. We've been trying for years to put everything back together and it hasn't worked. They want to throw it all out and start again.'

'And what do you think of that?' I leant forward in my chair like everyone else. We were all talking in hushed tones.

'I think they're right to a certain extent,' she said and my heart sank a little. 'But the way they're going about it. It's going to be...'

'What?' I said.

'They think of the country as a business.'

'It's always been like a business,' Lola said.

'Yes, but not a very effective one,' Vermina said.

'So, what's changing?' Casino said.

'The whole system. They're going to take over this country and merge it with all the others around the world.'

'You can't run a country like it's a load of shops and venues,' Casino said.

'They don't just have shops and venues,' I said. 'Not anymore.'

'Softly, softly catchee monkey,' Roach said.

'Who's the new Minister of Securities?' Minos said.

'Rowling.'

There was an outpouring of amazement and, of course, a whistle.

'You see?' Vermina said.

'But that gives Imagination Industries control of Enforce,' I said. 'She'll break the concord.'

There was an agreement in place between the government and Enforce that the Minister of Securities would leave the shareholders of Enforce to run the company. In return Enforce followed government policy and ceded the power to set that policy and to legislate to the Ministry. Rowling with the might of Imagination industries at her elbow and Galearian voices in her ear would change all that. She'd given Imagination Industries a seat on the board. Enforce would have control of the most powerful ministry in government. All the pieces were in position and it would be the Galearii who got to call checkmate.

'But she's not elected,' Lola said. 'Where's the pretence of democracy for those decent Work and Labour folk.'

'They won't care, as long as they can carry on doing what they're doing. Still they're going to keep quiet about Rowling until Imagination Industries have a better grip on how to spin it. They're going to say she's a consultant brought in to advise in the interim but she's there for good now. Terminus is just a puppet. They're all just puppets even her. She's just got fewer strings.'

'Surely there's someone else in line who could do it, who wants to do it,' Minos said.

'There's no one,' Vermina said. 'Not anymore.'

'Not anymore?' Lola said.

'This has been going on for the last couple of years, Ministers dying, sex scandals, the field has been cleared. Do you not follow politics?' Vermina said.

'Of course we do,' Casino said. 'But it's just rich kids playing with expensive bits of paper. Never once made a difference to anything I did, despite them trying to make everything worse.'

'Well, from where I'm sitting it looks like it's making a huge difference,' she said.

Casino considered this and failed to come up with a suitable retort. I agreed with Vermina, it was about to make all the difference in the world.

'Anything else, or do we do the fingernails after all?' Roach said.

'There's some kind of ceremony coming up but I don't know anything about it other than I'm to provide personal protection for Rowling.'

'Another ceremony,' Roach said and Vermina looked confused.

An urgent beeping tone came from somewhere on Minos's person. 'Time to move,' he said.

We went out into the stairwell.

'What now?' Casino said.

'You and Lola take Vermina's car and get Enforce to chase you around for a bit. Lola can drive, they'll like that. Minos, you set up a surveillance centre in the back of the van,' I said. 'Me and Roach can handle this. We'll just stay hidden and listen. Blindfold her and then we'll make it seem like we've left as well.'

'I can hide better,' Casino said.

'Sorcha better stay,' Minos said. 'If anything goes wrong she's got the best chance of getting them both away.' He pulled strange face then slapped me on the back, whether in comfort or encouragement I wasn't sure.

'I'll go down and keep watch for a bit,' Roach said. 'But I'll be back before they are.'

They ran to their various posts. I went back in and scattered all the chairs and made the place look neglected again.

'What happens now?' Vermina said.

'I don't know.'

I heard a door slam and then a vehicle leaving at high speed. Another reversed at pace with a high whine. I wondered why I hadn't heard them arrive but then I hadn't been paying attention.

'It must be amazing to be able to...'

'To what?' I said.

'What's the word for it? Telekinesis?'

'I guess so,' I said.

'It must be amazing,' she said.

'You'd think so,' I said.

'It's not?'

I shrugged.

'What?' she said. 'What's wrong?'

'It would be great, if it was just something I could do, for no reason. But it isn't.'

I heard the scream of brakes as at least two cars came to a sudden halt somewhere beneath the building. Engines revved and one drove off again.

I blindfolded her with an old rag from the floor, it smelled of old paint.

'I'm not going to let them kill you,' I said. 'I promise.'

'You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, you know.'

'They're coming,' Roach came through the door in a hurry.

Roach and I decided to hide in a cubicle that afforded us a good view of everything, Roach crouched on one side of a narrow gap in the wall and me on the other, a partition between us and the room. Roach looked worried, it wasn't an expression he wore often.

'What's the matter?' I said.

'Galearii,' was all he needed to say.

Not Enforce at all. Maybe she wasn't going to live past daybreak. There were three of them, they strode into the room with Rowling following close behind.

'How did you get here?' Rowling said, untying Vermina's blindfold.

'Blades,' Vermina said. 'The others came later.'

'And they've left you here?' Rowling said.

'They saw you coming and made a run for it. I think. That's what it sounded like.'

'And you're still sitting here? You can get out of those ties, surely?

'I don't feel so good,' Vermina said. 'And they said someone was coming. I managed to disable my unit.'

'Yes, good thinking,' Rowling said.

One of the Galearii spoke. It sounded like a mixture of languages I'd heard in the OP. A little Hebrew, a little Arabic. Urdu maybe. But with a very Europan inflexion. The Galearii sounded very calm, seductive almost. Rowling replied to whatever the angel had said. Rowling could speak Galearian. Roach looked stunned. Another Galearii spoke. Then they had a debate about something. I wished Roach could tell me what they were saying.

'Our friends are disturbed by the frequency with which Sorcha Blades eludes you. They are concerned that you may be helping her escape,' Rowling said.

'Helping her?' Vermina said. 'Why would I do that?'

'That's what we are wondering,' Rowling said.

'I'm not helping her,' Vermina said. 'She almost killed me.'

The Galearii spoke again. They hadn't untied her yet.

'Quite,' Rowling said. 'He says that she could kill you quite easily, so why didn't she?'

'I don't think she's like that,' Vermina said.

'Like what?'

'A killer,' Vermina said. 'She's not like us. None of them are.'

All three Galearii spoke at once, they said the same thing.

'None of whom?'

'The five,' Vermina said. 'The Vanguard.'

Roach rumbled. It was a growl he tried to keep inside but it refused to be silenced. I shook my head at him. I didn't believe she was going to betray us. She was playing her own game, she wasn't playing theirs. I didn't have any evidence for that other than my being sat there and not toe-tagged in an Enforce morgue, waiting for enough other corpses to make it worth them digging another municipal grave. And I wanted it to be true so much that it just had to be.

'The five?' Rowling said, she was looking around. I held my breath but she stopped by a chair I'd discarded earlier. She picked it up and walked back to Vermina, setting it down in front of her and sitting on it. She crossed one leg over the other and leant forward, elbows on her knee.

'Blades and her known associates. She is telekinetic, as you suspected. Minos Fry, he's the one with fire. Casino Flamingo has invisibility and Lola Capuzzo is telepathic,' Vermina said.

Capuzzo?' Rowling said. 'Not of the Capuzzos?'

'Yes, youngest daughter. Why?'

'He's in line for a cabinet role, her father,' Rowling said. 'We'll have to keep him at arm's length. At least for now.'

Roach and I frowned at each other. I didn't realise Lola's father was so connected. I wondered if she did.

'And the big man, Roach, he must be the one with all the languages. He wasn't as keen to show off as the others.'

Roach looked like he wanted to say he'd told me so.

'How did they find you in the first place?' Rowling said.

'They've put a tracking device in my car.'

One of the Galearii spoke again.

'How strong are they now?' Rowling translated.

'Very,' Vermina said. 'But I don't think they have the stomach for it.'

'How so?'

'Well, I'm still alive aren't I?'

'You do seem to be,' Rowling said. 'Well, Galen thought you were important enough to come and hear what you had to say.'

One of the Galearii was very talkative. He chattered on and on about something. Roach's eyes, which had been very busy with a myriad of expressions, glazed over with the sheer volume of wonder at one point. Rowling just nodded two or three times.

'What happens now?' Vermina said.

The first Galearii spoke again. He spoke at some length as well. They were very keen orators when they were in the mood. The others nodded along, they were all very agreeable. Rowling smiled at Vermina.

'They're going to kill her,' Roach whispered.

'I would translate, but as you're not going to be with us much longer I don't really see the point. Is that terribly bad of me?' the smile faded.

'Please,' Vermina said. 'It's not what you think.'

The Galearii spoke again.

'Drowning,' Roach said.

'Go,' I said. 'Take the fire escape, at the back.'

'You sure?'

'Yes, go.'

'What about you?'

'I can't leave her.'

'It's not your fault, Sorcha,' he said. 'Whatever happens, it's not your fault.'

Roach crawled back through the cubicles to the fire escape. Rowling and the Galearii were having a debate about something, just prolonging the agony. Vermina was almost out of the cable ties but they were too tight and she was too close to panic. I tried to come up with a plan but had to brace myself to winging it. They had three knives in their pockets that I could use if I was fast enough. There were chairs, a lot of paper, a length of pipe and an old tin of dried paint. Then Roach started banging on the door, he was standing on the dark fire escape outside knocking as though he were trying to get in. I told him to go but, of course, he hadn't left me. The three Galearii ran down the side of the cubicles towards him and Roach disappeared. I could hear him bounding down the metal staircase outside. The angels were fast, even though some old filing cabinets got in their way and slowed them down, Roach would only just get into the van. The door banged a few times as it closed behind the Galearii and I was left with just Rowling to deal with, she was looking at the door the Galearii had ran through after Roach, puzzled by events. Vermina's cable ties seemed to untangle themselves and floated to the floor without making a sound. I watched as Vermina stood up behind Rowling. Some papers threw themselves in the air, Rowling took a step towards them then stopped. She wasn't sure what was going on. She wasn't happy when you made her improvise, she didn't like being a step behind. I was still hidden in the cubicle searching through my mind for things to throw in the air, to distract her. But Vermina was thinking quicker, she caught Rowling just behind her left ear with that left hook of hers and Rowling was out cold.

'That's going to hurt in the morning,' I said as we tried to get Rowling into a position where she wouldn't die on us.

'It's very effective,' Vermina said.

'Tell me about it,' I said.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'It was necessary.'

'The Galearii are fun, aren't they?'

'Laugh a minute.' She went through Rowling's pockets looking for something. She found the communications unit and pulled the back off like we'd done with hers.

'They'll think you did it,' Vermina said. 'And she won't want to say otherwise. I know her. She'll want to save face.'

'They didn't see me. Only Roach.'

She smiled but it was a sad smile. 'You have no idea how many things Enforce have accused you of that they haven't seen you do. You get the blame for so many things, you can't possibly have done them all. Can you?'

'You'd be surprised,' I said. 'Will you be all right?'

'I'll be fine, better than ten minutes ago. She'll want to keep me on side but those Galearii will be punished for leaving her. They're not very bright, they're better at following orders.'

'I guess I leave you here then,' I said.

'Yes. Did they take my car?'

'Yes.'

'OK. I'll tell them you stole it. You go.'

'You're sure?' I said.

'Yes. I'll bring her round and she'll want to get our stories straight. I'll play the loyal bodyguard. I'm good at that.'

I wanted to say something but nothing seemed right. I stood there for a bit wondering if I had a mouthful of sand again and then took the stairs three at a time. Minos had parked up, hidden in a garage, he started the engine as I got in but kept the lights off.

'Is Roach all right?' I said.

'I'll be fine,' he said, emerging from the back of the van. 'Once I can catch my breath. As well as everything else, those angels are damn fast.'

# Chapter Fourteen

It took us an age to get home. Minos took the quietest streets he could find all the way back to the hotel, and then doubled back a few times, anxious to avoid any trouble. We drove past the old Cathedral that had given the Cathedral Quarter its name. It had stood for hundreds of years, despite the areas around it being bombed and battered through various conflicts the smoke hadn't even blackened the cathedral. But as we drove down the tiny alleyway behind the chapel our wheels bounced over the rubble and masonry that had fallen from the building. All that was left was the lower walls and the piles of debris. The dome lay upturned and cracked in the middle of it all like a headstone. If it had been in our sector it would have been recycled, turned into somewhere to live, somewhere to play but here the moneyed of the city walked by waiting for the paperwork that would authorise the site's clearance. When we arrived the hotel looked deserted, even to our expert eyes. We walked up the short drive, worrying about Lola and Casino who should have been inside.

'What?' I said, as Casino glared through a crack in the front door. We had set all the alarms off. 'You knew we were coming.'

'I am finding it difficult to adjust to my constant proximity to sudden death,' he said. 'It's unnerving.'

'Where's Lola?'

'In the incident room annex, we've been waiting ages for you.'

'Annex?' Minos said.

The incident room had grown again and the overspill was being housed in the cloakroom. We'd continued to put up everything we knew, almost knew, thought we almost knew and feared we knew. As a result miles and miles of string connected things that we couldn't bear to disconnect in case they were connected after all. There were even blank spaces for things we thought we might need to know that we didn't yet know, but we hoped to know in the future. It was like a migraine had been smeared on every inch of wall or ceiling. We assembled in the new extension sitting around on the benches beneath coat hooks swiping and tapping tablet screens. I whispered to Lola to see if there had been any word on Stark but there hadn't.

'We had the mother of all car chases,' Casino said. 'It was incredible. If they'd been more familiar with the city we'd be in trouble. But as it was, with her driving and my navigating we lost them in the Riverside and came straight back here.'

'Eoin and Dave are refitting Vermina's car, as we speak,' Lola said. Two kids from down the road, big in vehicle crime and owing us several large favours. This refit wouldn't even make a dent in their obligations.

'Loki will know someone who'll swap it for something we'll find useful,' I said.

'Excellent,' Minos said. 'Now for the important stuff. Fill us in on what the Galearii said, translator man.'

'OK, so we said they were old school,' Roach said. 'Well, they've set up headquarters in the old parliament building. That's how old school they are.'

'But it's flooded,' I said.

'Yes, but the Galearii are very fond of water, what with all the drowning and the island, maybe that's how they like it,' Roach said. 'They are all there rehearsing for a ceremony.'

'What's this ceremony for?' I said.

'Not what, who,' Roach said. 'It's for the Father.' He got a lot of blank looks for his trouble. He shrugged. 'I don't know either.'

'They like their rituals, don't they?' Minos said.

'Whatever it is, this ceremony is the final piece of the puzzle. They've got all their troops here, all the politicians assembled. Once this ceremony is finished they are going to take over.'

'Take over?' Casino said.

'The country, and then it will spread across the world,' Roach said.

'Mergers and takeovers,' Lola said.

'They call it something like the new way,' Roach said. 'Or the great cleansing. There's isn't really a translation, apart from into Latin but that's not so useful.'

'Vermina said they are going to rip everything up and start again,' I said.

'She did,' Roach said.

'She kind of agrees with them,' I said.

'I kind of agree with them,' Lola said. 'We need a new beginning. We've been staggering on, trying to hold on to the little we have and look at us. I can see why they want to start over. Wipe the slate clean.'

'Except the slate isn't going to be clean, is it?' Casino said.

'No,' Roach said. 'It's going to be covered in blood. And it's not going to be theirs.'

'Where have they come from?' Minos said. 'That's what I don't understand.'

'They've been waiting,' Casino said. 'That island didn't build itself.'

'I wouldn't be surprised if they had a hand in the disasters themselves. The flood, the whole thing,' I said. 'Casino's right. This all started a long time ago.'

'When is this ceremony?' Lola said.

'Friday,' Roach said.

Four days.

'What have you got to report?' Lola said to me.

'I left Rowling at the warehouse,' I said. 'And that's about it.'

'Where's Vermina?' Minos said.

'She was at the warehouse when I left, I don't know where she is now.'

This news was met with some initial scepticism but there was no getting round the truth of the matter, I had no idea where she was or how she was. It was the very early morning by then, the power cut plunging nearby streets into moonlight, but Roach insisted that we got something substantial to eat before we went to bed. The kitchen was piled up with boxes of figurines and Casino had been sketching out t-shirt designs. The sight of them almost ruined my appetite but I managed some beans and went to bed. Minos set a wakeup call for everyone at eleven the next morning. I thought I would wake up long before then, if I slept at all, but the next thing I knew it was ringing for me to get up.

Minos held onto the edge of the kitchen table, his elbows locked and his knuckles white. On front of him next to his plate of toast sat his wristset, buzzing away.

'What does she want?' he said, swinging on the back legs of his chair to get even further away.

The unit's display indicated that it was Clara Ten Below calling.

'She's probably just giving you a call after the party,' Casino said.

'What for?' Minos looked alarmed.

'Because you...you don't remember, do you?' Casino said.

'Remember what?'

I chuckled and poured some more milk on my cereal.

'What are you laughing at?' he said. 'And of course I remember.'

'We'll have to start calling her Clara Ten Above at this rate,' I said.

'Possibly higher,' Casino said. 'What do you think, Minos?'

It was almost as though we'd forgotten what the week had in store as we mocked him without mercy. Minos convinced himself that Clara was calling with some test results and a demand for medical credit, that entertained Casino and I for a good half an hour until I got a call from Yum. My work placement records were back on line after Enforce suspended them, and my holiday was over.

'Did you do that?' I said to Minos. I had been enjoying my brief hiatus from the daily grind.

'No, I thought you did it.'

'Not me. Not when we don't know who's watching. Maybe it was the same people as before.'

We wandered through the system. There was no trace of anything anywhere so we decided it was the same people as before and I went to work.

By the time Yum had finished dragging me about all over the city it was dark again. I rode around to the back of the hotel and came in through the garden with my security code so as not to set off any alarms. I left my imposter bike in reception, I wasn't ready to let it take the place of my other bike on the hooks over my bed. It just didn't feel right. There was no one about, everyone was at work and Lola had gone to see Tex. Tex, whose father worked at the Ministry for Securities. I pondered that. Lola had never in the time that I had known her played the class card. Minos wouldn't be impressed but then Minos probably wouldn't understand. If things broke he fixed them, if things lay around he stole them, his life wasn't very complex. He was an honest, uncomplicated, straightforward man. I stretched out on the table in the incident room, my hands behind my head, looking up at the ceiling and the lengths of string as they wound round and round and out the door into the dark cloakroom. I had a strong feeling we needed to go to the ceremony but no feeling about how we would get in. I switched the news on, looking for a distraction. Marshall was on, holding forth on the ceremony. He told whoever was out there watching and listening that all manner of people would be invited. He ran through some names on the guest list that people might have heard of, or would be hearing more about in the future so they'd better get used to the sound of their names. Agent Tourniquet was on the list.

The next day Greasy Clive's was heaving, it was breakfast time for the great unwashed. I strode into his kitchen as he was plating up a number five and some hash browns that he'd got from Haggia. I knew he'd got them there because they were made from real potato. My interrogation didn't go very well.

'Listen,' I said. 'I know you know him so you might as well just tell me how I can get in touch with him.'

'I don't know how to contact him,' he said. 'And anyway even if I did know I'm quite sure that if I told you he'd make something horrible happen to me. He's rich you know. He knows other rich people.'

Short of holding his face against the hotplate I couldn't figure out how to make him tell me, and the thought of doing that made me feel sick. I couldn't ask Stark because he was unavailable and even if he wasn't he'd just give me that look and then he'd tell Lola and she'd give me an even worse look.

'And how about all the people I know, Clive,' I said. 'I know everyone.'

Clive moved with a speed I found surprising, slipped behind me, picked up two plates and whisked them across the cafe. 'True,' he said when he came back armed with another order. 'You know lots of people and lots of things. Useful things.'

Now we were getting somewhere. I decided to wait for the rush to finish. All good things come to those who wait.

'Right, sorry about that,' Clive sat down opposite me. He'd furnished me with a fine lunch and coffee on tap. 'The way I see it you want something from me and I want something from you.'

'Happy days,' I said. 'What do you want?'

'What do you want first?' he said.

'You know what I want.'

'You want Tourniquet.'

'I don't think we need to put it quite like that,' I said. 'I merely want to know where he is.'

Clive risked a smirk and I pondered the hotplate approach.

'What do you want?' I said.

'My five year licence is up today, my inspection is tomorrow and I found a cat in the fridge yesterday.'

'How did it get in the fridge?' I said.

'Exactly.'

Clive didn't want to know who put the cat in his fridge. We knew that. It was Enforce. It wasn't in their interests to have Clive run the cafe for another five years. He always paid all his fees on time and been no trouble at all, or no fun as they would put it. It would be easy to catch one of the hundreds of feral cats roaming around, sneak into Clive's kitchen during the rush and put it in the fridge. Clive was not going to get his licence that was certain, as clear as if the cat had a sign hung round its neck saying so.

'What time is the inspection?' I said.

'Three in the afternoon.'

'Don't worry,' I stood up. 'I have a strong suspicion that you're going to be licensed for another ten years.'

'Ten?' Clive smiled.

'Oh, yes. We know a good thing when we see it.' I said. 'And besides, Emirhan's opening hours don't suit our business requirements.'

At three o'clock sharp the next day I was sitting in front of a screen trying to locate the plastic drone's tablet in the system. Sure enough one blinked into life bearing the location tag for Clive's place. It was a question of timing. I had banished everyone from the room and my headphones played some peaceful three step dub that Loop had compiled for me a couple of years ago. It was very relaxing. The inspection took forty five minutes, I watched the code alter according to the boxes the inspector checked on his or her tablet. I watched with total focus. It would not do to miss my opportunity, the authorisation process went through three different ministries but after this point it was a simple systemic programme without human intervention. And it was live. If I missed this window it would take days to filter through all the databases to produce the licence and that would be so tedious it didn't bear thinking about. Bureaucracy was never, ever efficient. And in the meantime they'd shut Clive down, I'd never find Tourniquet and the ceremony would happen without us. The inspector got to the last option and chose not to approve Clive's application. There was no reason to do that, given the responses they had already added to the system, but that wouldn't matter. I counted to five and then changed the code as it fluttered up the screen. My palms were sweating despite that fact I'd done this kind of thing countless times before. I guessed that it hadn't mattered so much then, it had been business whereas this was something more. I rendered Clive's licence while Minos, who had be desperate to get in and see what I was doing, told me how Chunk had cut him in on a deal for some vodka. I could just picture the look on Marshall's face.

'Licence,' I said to Clive as it appeared between my fingers.

'How do you do that?' he said.

'Magic,' I said. 'Now where's Tourniquet?'

'Ah, about that,' Clive looked ashamed. 'I'm not sure I can tell you. Can't you just give me your number and I'll pass it on.'

The hotplate wasn't even warm. The dial went up to six and I couldn't bear to put it higher than one and a little bit. It didn't stop Clive screaming though.

'Do you know what Minos will do to us if we give Tourniquet my number?' I said. 'Or what he'll get Roach to do.'

Clive was afraid of Roach. 'I'll tell you, I'll tell you. I'm sorry, I didn't think it through properly.'

'No, you didn't,' I hauled him up and turned off the heat. 'After I went to all that trouble for you too.'

'He made me call him at a drinking establishment, near the Ministries I think it is. He's there a lot. Like nearly every day,' Clive's cheek was a little red.

'What's it called?'

'I don't know.'

'Clive, you are hopeless. How do you know it's a bar?'

'Because I could hear drinking and what have you in the background, people ordering and whatnot.'

'What's the number?'

After much searching he found it and gave it to me. 'How are you going to find out where it is?'

'I'm going to ring this number and ask them,' I said.

He looked at me in wonder. 'You are clever.'

It was a club for paper dolls. I put a pair of Minos's socks, which I picked up with tongs and great courage from the pile of dirty clothes on his floor, in a padded envelope and wrote Tourniquet's name on it.

I strode into the club dressed in my finest courier chic. I smelt like the road, I was even wearing some of it. The doorman didn't look impressed but I threw a few authorisation codes around and he let me pass.

'I'm to wait for this person,' I showed the package to a man dressed like an important penguin.

He raised one eyebrow so I raised both mine back and took up position in a dim corner. The club was one of those mahogany walled, Turkish carpeted affairs. It was populated by ministry types so the air was full of whispers. I didn't bother to listen, I knew it would be boring. It was only then it occurred to me that I might be waiting for hours. I fiddled with my wristset to let Minos know that I was on a job with a wait and hoped that Casino wouldn't be in an inquisitive mood and check who I was waiting for. Yum would have no idea. I contemplated setting Yum up to cover for me but before I could tie myself up in a knot of lies Agent Tourniquet sauntered through the door. I watched him install himself at a table near the fire blazing in the ornate fireplace and wave for a drink. He flicked through a book that was lying on the table and when he looked up I was sitting opposite him.

'Hello,' he smiled. 'What are you doing here? How did you get in?'

'If I were you I'd go for what do you want?' I said. 'You'll like the answer to that one.'

'What do you want?' he said, almost before I'd finished my sentence.

'I want you to take me out for a drink tomorrow night,' I said.

'Do you now?'

'You suggested dinner, this is a compromise.'

'You got my note then, I thought you were ignoring me.'

'I was. The Noose and Trapdoor. Eight o'clock,' I tossed the package on the table as I stood up. 'This came for you.'

I heard his horrified exclamation from the other end of the room. Minos had been known to wear a sock out before he washed it.

I didn't tell the others where I was going when I left the next evening. Casino noticed I didn't look like I'd got dressed in the dark but he didn't say anything. I considered taking the tracking pin out of my jacket but given our current situation I figured I'd rather have no privacy than no back up. I met Tourniquet in the tiny, traditional boozer out Albert way. It was in a quiet former residential area right on the edge of the river. We arrived at the same time, both a little early. Tourniquet had dressed down, but unlike many handsome men who looked good in a collared shirt he also managed to look great in scruffy t-shirt.

'Rum, is it?' he said.

'I'm not going to ask how you know that,' I said.

'From my party,' he said. 'I saw you long before you saw me. Sorry. I'm not a stalker or anything.'

'You're not sorry at all,' I said. 'Rum will be fine. I'll get a seat, shall I?'

'Yes, you do that. Get a quiet one.'

Much to my irritation Tourniquet was very good company. He was like Lola in that he had an enormous dislike for his social class but unlike her he was prepared to play along to get what he wanted. He struck me as the kind of man who would do a great deal to get what he wanted.

'I don't know,' he said when I asked him why he was an artist. 'I'm not very good, am I?'

I finished my third, or maybe it was my fourth, drink and didn't supply an answer

'You can tell me, I can take it,' he said.

'It's not to my taste, but its art, not everyone's supposed to like it.'

'It's important that no one likes it, that way people don't feel dirty about spending lots of money on it,' he said. 'Credit, whatever. Do you remember money?'

'No.'

'No, you're too young. I do, lovely stuff money.'

He couldn't remember money, he didn't look old enough. Although, knowing him, he probably had the best surgeon in his pocket as well as everyone else.

'I think I'm a bit drunk,' Tourniquet said. 'I think we should get something to eat.'

'Good idea.'

'Come on then,' he stood up. 'Inigo's put something in the oven for us, we just need to heat it up. I hope you know how to do that, because I've got no idea at all.'

'We're going back to your place?' I said.

'Yeah.'

'On the first date?'

'So it is a date?' he sat down again. 'I did wonder.'

'You know what I mean, I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.'

'Come on, Sorcha, don't be boring,' he stood up again. 'Besides I imagine you have some sort of tracking device somewhere about your person so you're quite safe.'

'You know altogether too much about me,' I said.

'Yet you still maintain an air of mystery,' he said. 'How do you do it?'

'I'm very devious.'

Tourniquet lived in a huge flat at the top of an eight storey block that was otherwise empty. The south facing walls were made of glass and overlooked the Western Disaster Zone. He dimmed the lights so we could see the view better, at least that was his story and I didn't bother to complain.

'You know that old power station has always been like that,' he said, pointing to four pale chimneys in the middle of the river. 'Not flooded but abandoned and falling down. Never seems to completely crumble though.'

'I heard people live there,' I said.

'Yes, they do. You can see the lights on their boats going back and forth sometimes.'

'How can anyone live in the Disaster Zone?'

'I don't know,' Tourniquet said. 'I can't imagine why you would want to.'

When the river flooded it didn't seep into the city in an organised fashion, rising like bath water. It surged down from the sea and in three or four places on the way inland it turned and on the outside edges of those curves huge waves destroyed everything. The Western Disaster Zone was the worst hit, everyone died, either crushed by the water or the building they were in. No one was saved. With no money for recovery the areas were sealed off and the bodies that didn't wash up further downstream were forgotten.

'I can't imagine why you would want it as a view,' I turned to him, away from the window.

'It's inspiring,' he said. 'In an odd way. And I like watching the weather experiments.

I couldn't see it in the dark, but the Western Disaster Zone was forever huddled beneath a very large cloud, part of an artificial weather system that some Academy scientists had created to try and develop a microclimate. They had all sorts of biblical weather out there. It snowed upwards one very cold day. The experiment was not going well but they couldn't stop for fear that the whole thing would break free and drift across the city. They were trying to make it light and sunny, warm like Nexus. Just like Nexus. That was a worry. If they got power, I could see the plastic dolls going for all the things they could achieve in a big way. I'd read about a dictator who'd killed thousands and thousands of people but he'd got the trains to run on time so people didn't mind so much. Along with the rest of the people in my sector I'd never been on a train so that wouldn't have won us over. But no one was trying to win us over.

'Earth to Sorcha,' Tourniquet said, very near my ear. 'I've got no rum. Will champagne do?'

'I suppose so,' I made a show of sighing.

Inigo was a great cook, I hadn't eaten so well in months, perhaps years. Tourniquet insisted on pronouncing the names of all the dishes in a ridiculous accent sending me into fits of giggles which proved infectious. If this had been a proper date I would have been delighted with how it was going.

'I heard you're going to that ceremony thing,' I said, remembering why I was there.

He groaned. 'Don't mention that, it's going to be awful.'

'It sounded very dull on the news.'

'It's very important apparently. The way they're talking about it you'd think it was the most important thing that had ever happened.'

'Who's talking about it?'

'Everyone. It's so boring. I've got to wear robes,' he said. 'Me, in robes. Can you imagine it?'

I smiled. 'Yes.'

'Do you want to come?'

'Me?'

'Yeah, I've got two tickets and no one to take.'

'I find that very hard to believe,' I said.

'Well, it's true. I'm very lonely.'

I laughed.

'It's not funny. You're not seeing anyone. Why don't you come?'

'You are a stalker.'

He held his hands up in mock surrender. 'Clive told me all about you. But in a nice way, he's very fond of you lot. It sounds like he ought to be.'

'I doubt you can prove anything.'

'Why would I want to? And to whom?' he said. 'Honestly, you are so suspicious.'

'You are a very strange man.'

'Yes, but will you come?'

'Maybe,' I said. 'I'd have to meet you somewhere though. You definitely can't pick me up.'

He grinned. 'Am I a secret?'

'Yes. From what Clive has told you about the rest can you imagine them approving?'

'No, not Minos for sure. Maybe Lola though, I'm sure I know her uncle. Hercules, is it?'

'Yes, that's him.'

'I keep my mouth shut about that though, right?' he said.

'Right.'

'Well, why don't I give you the second invitation then you can meet me in there?'

He went out to the hallway and came back with thick white card with embossed gold lettering. It was heavier that it ought to have been, suggesting it was packed with all kinds of digital delights.

'Don't lose it,' he said. 'It's an arrestable offence. I can't see why though.'

'There's just one thing,' I said, thinking of another twelve things just off the top of my head. 'I don't have any robes.'

'We can get them on the way in. You didn't think I actually had robes, did you?'

I lost count of the number of times I had to remind myself I was there on business and that I'd got what I wanted and should probably think about leaving. But it got later and later. I could hear a buzzing from my jacket pocket where I'd abandoned my wristset, I ignored it. I had a fleeting fear that at any moment the four of them would come crashing through the huge window on ropes but the champagne told me I was being silly.

'Are you a big reader?' I said.

'Yes, how did you guess?'

I pointed at the bookcase that filled one wall. 'Actual books.'

'That's just the overspill,' he took my hands and pulled me off the chair. 'Come and see.'

At first I thought it was a trick to get me into his bedroom, what with the enormous and obvious bed in the middle of the room, but he seemed so excited about his books it couldn't have been. I'd gone way past the point where any tricks would be necessary anyway. It reminded me of Étienne's study. The books were leather-bound with the occasional water damaged paperback nestled between them. There wasn't an inch of wall space that wasn't covered by a book, the shelves were built around the door and the window, its blind drawn.

'I keep meaning to organise them properly,' he said. 'But I like that chaos, you know. It's like fate choosing what I'm going to read.'

'And what occupies the great reader at the moment?' I picked up the book on his bedside table.

'Research,' he said as I leafed through it.

'You're into angels and that?' I sat on the bed, it was heavy material to fall asleep to.

'Mythology.'

'Sorry, mythology. It sounds so much more reasonable when you say it like that,' I tried to keep the suspicion out of my voice. 'Did fate pick this for you?'

He shook his head. 'I was doing something on it at the Academy a few months ago and I'd completely forgotten I'd got all this stuff until I stepped into the game yesterday. And then I remembered that's who they were, the Galearii.'

'In the game? The Vanguard?'

'Yeah, they just started to appear, maybe a couple of weeks ago. Current events appear in the game. It's something to do with the neural patterning stuff. You'd know more about that though.'

'Probably,' I assumed Tourniquet had seen them in the Entertainment Centre, that he was just pretending to visit Massey's House.

'You should try it, it's...' he searched for the right word. 'Immense.'

He didn't know the half of it. At least I hoped he didn't. There was a chapter in the book on the painting that Stark had shown us and the rest of the work in the series. I didn't know the half of it either.

'You look very serious all of a sudden,' he sat next to me.

'Me?' I said. 'I don't do serious.'

He took the book out of my hands and laid it on the bed between us. 'The Galearii are not what people think they are.'

I waited.

'Do you know how many people in the NW sector they killed during the disturbances?'

'No.'

'None.'

'None?'

'Not a single one. Which is odd given that the affluent sections of society are in raptures about the extreme and deadly violence they witnessed on the news. They saw it with their own eyes and yet are quite content to believe the official figures of zero casualties.' He stood up, raised the blind and looked out of the window, hands folded in the small of his back one, inside the other. 'It's the same old problem.'

It was a very old problem and I knew it well. 'Nobody cares.'

He turned to me. 'That's right. Nobody cares. But you do. Inside. You care.'

'I don't think you know me well enough to know if I care or not.'

'The government, the paper dolls, they don't care about you lot because they can't do anything with you, they can't use you, they can't bargain with you, they can't understand you. But worst of all, they can't stop being afraid of you.'

'So what are they going to do about it?' I tried a smile.

'What are they going to do? They've all ready started. They're turning you into a number. And that number is zero.'

I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out.

'Come on, let's change the subject. This is depressing, and I'm just showing off and being dramatic. I didn't mean to upset you,' he held out his hand. 'I know what you need.'

I gave him the Capuzzo eyebrow. 'Really?'

He looked innocent, faux-innocent. 'Dessert.'

There was, of course, more champagne to wash down Inigo's dessert. Tourniquet regaled me with funny stories about the Academy and Stark, who he seemed to be very fond of despite knowing that Stark despised him. He knew that I knew Stark but he didn't let on and neither did I. He didn't mention Stark's current incarceration either. After a while I managed to lose our previous conversation somewhere in the back of my head.

'Who's Inigo?' I said.

'He's my, I can't think of the word,' Tourniquet rubbed the end of his nose with his palm, I was learning that this was something he did when he was embarrassed.

I laughed. 'Is it servant?'

'No, no it isn't.'

'It is, he's your servant.'

'It's not that funny,' but he was laughing too. 'He's my assistant. Yes, you carry on laughing. You poor little make your own dinner type person.'

I laughed so much I started the room spinning.

'Hey, did you use that cheat code?' Tourniquet said as he came back from the kitchen with another bottle of champagne.

I nearly said that I had but saved myself just in time. 'I told you, I don't play the games.'

'That's right, you're a privacy nut,' he sat on the sofa next to me, very close, and put the bottle on the table. 'Do you know what I think?'

'Give me a clue.'

'You're right, in a way. It's a question of simple economics. I think that this space here,' he leant closer still and put one finger on my left temple and one on my right. 'This space inside your head is the most valuable real estate there is and they really do want to get in it.'

'Really? It's that valuable?'

'Well, maybe not as valuable a space as this here, but still pretty...' his lips touched mine.

I listened to him breathing while he slept and I flicked though his bedtime reading. I wasn't really concentrating on the book, I was thinking how my new, unexpected life was not conducive to romance. And there was, as usual, the Vermina factor to be considered. It was difficult to work out what Tourniquet wanted, but I knew that in the end it wouldn't make any difference. I put the book down and closed my eyes.

I woke as the sun was coming up, slipped out from under Tourniquet's arm and left. I'd slept badly. I kept dreaming about the people at the black market with the smart bomb and how the Galearii would give them an excuse to set it off. I could see straight through Minos as the blast hit him, his skeleton lit up in bright, bright green. As I crossed the road, the heavy fog of a hangover beginning to descend, a grey van almost ran me over. The side door opened and three angry faces glared out at me.

'Get in,' Minos said from the driver's seat, making it four angry faces. 'Get in this van right now.'

It was worse than I feared. No one would talk to me in the van on the way home despite my best attempts at polite conversation. They left it until I thought maybe I'd gotten away with it and then they rounded on me in the kitchen.

'So, what do you have to say for yourself?' Minos said, his hair smouldering. He was angry.

'I was finding out about the ceremony,' I said.

'You were not,' Casino said. 'I know what you were doing and it wasn't that kind of investigation.'

A silence descended on the table.

'What?' I said after a long pause during which Casino looked more and more nervous.

'It wasn't his fault,' Lola said.

Every cupboard evacuated its contents onto the floor.

'We were worried,' Roach said.

'I didn't stay,' Casino said. 'I came in, had a moment of horrible, horrible realisation and then went out again.'

All the taps came on full blast and the shutters over the windows danced up and down. I tried to get a grip on myself.

'He should lock his front door,' Casino said.

'I'm too angry to talk to you right now, but you might be interested in this,' I said, slamming the invitation to the ceremony down on the table. I stalked off leaving them to clear up the mess I had made.

It was a whole three hours before I had calmed down. That is to say an hour until objects stopped flying around, another hour until I had reassured myself that Casino hadn't seen anything that I would have been that ashamed of, not in the dark anyway, and a third hour for me to work out how to walk downstairs and speak to them while retaining the moral high ground. Not that I had the moral high ground but having it and acting like you have it are not the same thing at all. If you can act like you have it, you don't need it.

'Right,' I said. 'What's the invitation all about then?'

They were still in the kitchen huddled around the dismantled invitation like surgeons around a critical patient. They had cleaned up.

'It's very interesting,' Minos said.

'You were right,' Casino said. That was about as close to an apology as I was going to get. It was also about as close as I deserved.

'This tells us everything we need to know about the security, guest list, timings and access,' Minos said. 'How did you know?'

'I had a hunch,' I said.

'We're going, aren't we?' Lola said.

'Yes,' I said. 'We need to disrupt that ceremony and buy some time. We need to do something, anything, otherwise I have a horrible feeling it's going to be too late.'

'Me too,' Minos said.

'And me,' Lola sighed.

'Right,' Roach said. 'We've got two days to work out how we get into the old parliament building.'

'Can any of us breathe underwater?' Casino said.

'Before we do that,' Minos said. 'We need to know what you're doing.'

I looked around the table to see who he was talking to only to find that it was me.

'It was only the day before yesterday that you were all moon-eyed about Vermina,' Minos said.

'Moon-eyed?' I said. 'I don't even know what that means.'

'Listen, we're not having an intervention here,' Roach said. 'It's just that the other night we nearly got into serious trouble with the Galearii because you wanted to talk to Vermina.'

'And that's perfectly fine,' Lola said before I could interrupt. 'But we need to know. You said you weren't going to find her. If you hadn't been tracked we wouldn't have known where you were, would we?'

Silence.

'Would we?' Casino said.

'No,' I said.

'And then last night, the same,' Minos said throwing his hands up in a gesture of despair. 'Honestly, Sorcha, engage brain please. Engage brain.'

The blinds closed themselves, fluttering like furious birds in the windows. Minos emitted a crackling sound.

'There's no need for anyone to get angry,' Roach said. 'I think we all need to make a deal that we won't, any of us, wander off without telling someone where we're going.'

'And no falling in love,' Minos said. 'Even if it is for just five minutes.'

Lola sighed. 'Minos, that is completely out of order and you know it.'

I skipped the rest of the argument and went and found something else to do. I checked my messages in the DarkNet and found an order from a friend of Loop's who wanted a hack for his welfare record. He had a serious disease but silly credit. I liked Loop so it felt like a good use of my time.

'Do you have a minute?' Lola said later as I was sending a message back to the guy to say it was all done and that I hoped he'd get well soon.

'Sure. Thank you for sticking up for me.'

'That's all right. Minos was out of order. I know he was just worried about you but still, there is no need to be like that about it,' she said. 'I wanted to say thank you to you, actually.'

'What for?'

'Because even though you pretend you don't, you do understand about Stark and I appreciate that. I really do. Both the understanding and the pretending. So, thank you.'

'You're welcome,' I said.

'And I'm sorry about earlier.'

'No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone off and...' I couldn't think of what I shouldn't have done, because if I had the chance to do it over I'd do it all the same.

'And gotten all involved with the gorgeous man Stark told you to stay away from?'

'I'm not involved. It was casual.'

'You don't do casual,' Lola said. 'Your casual is someone else's grand passion, just a lot faster.'

'I'm not going to see him again,' I said. 'So it doesn't matter.'

'You said that about Vermina, didn't you?'

'That's different. Besides there's nothing going on.'

'Listen, you think with this, right?' She put her hand over my heart. 'But you need to start thinking with this or someone will get killed.'

'Who?' I said with Lola's left hand on my heart and her other on top of my head. I meant who else but couldn't say it.

'You,' she said.

'What did Tex say?' I shook off her hands with more irritation that I felt. Massey had said something similar, and Stark. What was it with these people?

'Tex?'

'Yes,' I said in such as way as to indicate that I would find her lying or prevaricating tedious.

'He said that his father was, unfortunately, unable to get Stark out,' she shrugged like it was nothing, but I knew what it would have cost her to ask him and how terrible the answer was. 'He was genuinely helpful about it. I think under all that he's probably a nice guy. Just very young.'

'I thought he said his old man was Director of Liaison, surely a quiet word would have done it?' I said.

'Apparently not, he's outranked by the Imagination Industries liaison people and they're sending them to some court in New Europa to try them for some kind of espionage.'

Things were gathering pace. 'New Europa? They can't do that.'

They could have done it before the flood and the crash and all the other things that befell humanity, but since then there were no international treaties, no bargains to be made over borders.

'They can,' Lola said. 'It seems that since Enforce are a private company some legal expert, a specialist supplied by Imagination Industries no less, has worked out that detainees can be defined as products and therefore transported and traded as such.'

'So what court are they going to?'

'Some kind of industrial one.'

Vermina was right. That's how they were going to do it. They were going to take everything they had set up for commercial gain and apply it for political reward. There used to be a popular saying just after the flood, as corpses from other places started washing up dead on the beaches, something about disasters not respecting borders.

'They're a disaster,' I said, and for a moment Lola looked puzzled because she was thinking about Stark.

We let logistics take our minds off things. The security for the ceremony was massive, Enforce were bringing in all the licensed private security they could buy. Roach was worried he would be on the list but his citizen clearance wasn't high enough. They weren't taking any chances. Work and Labour people were volunteering to help out, desperate to play a part and they were being given time off work to do so. We thought for a moment that it might be better to forget about our plan and raid some places in the city because everything was going to be abandoned. But I guess our consciences got the better of us because we mapped out a route and a strategy that would take us up into the parliament building from under the city.

The first part of the journey would be easy, it was the usual sneaky route into the city when security was tight, but there was a hitch in the middle. We would have to go through Mole Town. Mole Town was a bit like the underground community on the brown line except where they'd suffered a psychosis from never moving above ground for three generations, Mole Town was suffering from a psychosis brought about by everyone down there being a psychopath. Most of them were military. After the Seven Invasions necessitated the redrawing of the world atlas most countries couldn't afford armies, or air forces or whatever else and they were disbanded. Demobbed soldiers roamed around fighting with themselves out of habit. No one wanted them. Some countries blamed them for the millions of lives that had been lost and carried out a kind of professional genocide against anyone who had served. Our soldiers fared a little better but still found themselves unloved and unemployed, even Enforce wouldn't touch some of them. They were a public relations nightmare. So, they moved underground and colonised one of the biggest stations and a mile along three of the lines that intersected it. They had planned to hold the system to ransom but it fell into disrepair so fast that the only thing their demands for a ransom raised was a smile. Mole Town was like a warzone because that's how they liked it. It wasn't how we liked it, but it was the only way we were going to get into the passages under the old parliament building.

Once we'd come to terms with our proposed jaunt through Mole Town we decided to travel light with only what we needed to get in to the building and then disrupt the ceremony. We were going to stop them from finishing the ritual and then take it from there. That would throw a spanner in the works and that was the best we could hope for. We'd got all the schematics and schedules we needed from the data packed into the invitation. It seemed that they'd given everyone complete access, we guessed because they didn't have time to segment everything. Or maybe it was just their usual arrogant and lackadaisical attitude towards security, either way once we'd got into the building we were all right. Even the robes would provide a handy disguise. I worried that it was all too easy but stopped that before I tempted fate.

'We've still got Vermina's gun, I suppose,' Minos said. We were sitting in the lounge room, the others taking care of errands or out working, everyone tracked and in touch.

'And telekinesis and pyromancy,' I said.

'Oh, yeah,' he grinned.

'It's good not to get complacent.'

'You never know,' he lit a flame on his fingertip and blew it out. 'It might even be fun.'

He didn't say that in a way that suggested he thought it would be. I felt a little more relaxed. Vermina had said it had been going on for years. That meant they were playing the long con. And that was fine by me, I loved the long con. From the way his left leg was jiggling up and down I could tell that Minos wanted to talk so I just hung around waiting for him to start.

'You know Clara,' he said, after a lot of waiting.

'Yes.'

'I did something, we did something.'

'It's OK, I know what it's called,' I said. He seemed more upset than usual. He always was very uncomfortable with the whole thing, fearing he was the great pregnamancer instead of the pyromancer, but it wasn't like him to dwell on it.

'Well, I don't like to, you know, because it's more trouble than it's worth, really, don't you think?' he looked at me. 'No, I know you don't.'

'It's fine, Minos, isn't it? Does she want to move in or something?'

'No, no, she's all right. She's cool about it.'

'Yes, she struck me as a woman who would be,' I said.

'It's just that...'

There was some more waiting. I thought about getting a snack.

'It's just that I only did it because I thought, well you know,' he said.

'You're going to have to help me out.'

'I thought, well I'm probably going to be dead in a few days what with all this that's going on, so why not?'

No wonder he was so upset about it.

# Chapter Fifteen

We took a car from a street near the hotel and drove to an old station that would give us access to the tunnels into the city. Streets within a two mile radius of the parliament building were subject to road blocks and checks and we weren't in any position to withstand that kind of scrutiny. Roach had Vermina's gun tucked in his waistband and Minos had the full cartridge in his pocket, we decided to only use it in an emergency. We clattered down the paralysed escalator into the underground station, disturbing huddled groups of people who we appeared to ignore but paid close attention to, just as they did to us. We all pretended there was nothing to see, just people standing around and people passing by, the same as it ever was.

'I feel like I spend my whole life walking down corridors or passageways,' Minos said, lighting our way with a flame that he made dance around his feet, just like his figurine. 'Sometimes they're dark, sometimes there are despotic psychopaths at the end of them, but they are all ultimately corridors.'

'Life is a corridor,' Casino said.

'Between the twin waiting rooms of birth and death,' Roach said.

'Can anyone here see in the dark?' Minos put his flame out. 'No? Well, best be humouring me then.'

'Corridors it is,' Casino said. 'And what was the other thing?'

'Passageways,' Minos said.

We walked along the tunnels, stepping through the odd abandoned train carriage, careful to avoid eye contact with anyone living there. Round there, so close to the surface, problems were rare but there was an air of anxiety everywhere that promised the unpredictable. We reached the interchange station and the tunnels changed. There was some exceptional graffiti on the walls but it was darker, damper. The occasional breeze sent shivers down my spine and not just because of the chill in the air.

'There it is,' Lola said. 'The entrance to Mole Town.'

'It's been nice knowing you all,' Casino said. 'Please don't leave my body to medical science.'

'Don't worry,' Minos said. 'I doubt there'll be anything left.'

Our laughter came back off the walls with a very hollow echo. We passed small bivouacs made with anything that would offer some privacy. The streets were lit by large free-standing lanterns that ran on some oil pressed from vegetables, I could smell carrots, then onions. They were pretty resourceful, just not that bothered about luxury or comfort. There were no people about. In the distance we could hear rumbling and the crack of sporadic gun fire. The path through the makeshifts homes got narrower and narrower until we walked in single file, Minos leading the way, Roach at the back. A break in the houses revealed a mural on the tunnel wall, painted to let everyone know that they were passing out of the Dragoons territory and into that of the Green Fusiliers. They were divided along gang lines, former regiments turned loose. The Death Watch ruled Mole Town, one of the few groups that had changed their name to better reflect their new, humbler circumstances and change in priorities.

'Where is everybody?' Minos said.

'Do you suppose they've gone over to their side?' Lola said. 'Like Enforce.'

'That kind of talk is not going to get you into my good books,' a man stepped into our path. He was dressed in a dirty but well pressed uniform, with a chest full of medals. At once he was flanked by lower ranking Green Fusiliers with not a medal between them. There were seven of them, all in the way. 'And you don't want to be in my bad books. Now, who is in charge?' he said.

'It depends of what,' I said under the inevitable gaze of the other four.

'Of what?' the man said.

'Yeah,' Minos said. 'I'm in charge of hardware. Casino here is in charge of reconnaissance, Roach is in charge of security, Lola is in charge of communications and Sorcha, she's in charge of...'

I glared at him.

'She provides...' he tried.

'Leadership?' the man suggested.

'Yes,' Minos said. 'That's it, she provides leadership.'

'I'll talk to you then, shall I?'

'If you like,' I said. 'Unless you want to talk about technology, reconnaissance, security or communications. Then you'd be better off speaking to one of my colleagues.'

There was a murmuring from the back of the group.

'Reeves,' shouted the man, deafening everyone in the tunnels for miles around. 'Stop your wittering.'

'Sorry, Colonel,' Reeves said.

A Colonel. That didn't bode well. High ranking officers were drafted into Enforce positions where they could be of service to the state, or they were allowed to set up private security firms like the one Roach pretended to work for. It was unusual for Mole Town to have anyone above Major. If he was a Colonel, and he had enough medals to be, he was too psychotic to be put to use anywhere.

'What brings you to Mole Town?' he said.

'Your excellent cuisine?' I said.

'Try again.'

Reeves and the soldier next to him were chattering again, a third man had turned round to look at something.

'Well, it's a very long story,' I said.

'Reeves, will you pipe down,' the Colonel said.

'I'm sorry, sir,' Reeves said, moving to the front of the group. 'It's just that, well, look.' He held a small plastic model of Lola.

'It's a toy, man, a child's toy,' the Colonel said.

'No, sir,' Reeves said. 'With all due respect.'

'No?' the Colonel said. 'No?'

'No, it's her,' Reeves pointed at Lola.

'And this one,' another soldier said, pointing at Casino. 'Is that one there.'

'And this big guy with the book, is that one there,' another soldier said. They'd all got a figure in their hands.

'What are you talking about?' the Colonel said. 'They don't look anything like these toys.'

'They're not toys, sir,' Reeves said. 'They're action figures.'

The Colonel was looking very confused.

'Do you have one of me?' Minos said.

There was some rummaging around in pockets and much shaking of heads.

'No,' Reeves said. 'Sorry.'

'Are you sure?' Minos stood in a pool of flame that waltzed around his feet.

There was a gasp of utter awe which gave way to delirious applause, the soldier with the mini Minos received everyone's congratulations.

'Ten-shun,' shouted the Colonel and everyone fell into line in an instant. Even Casino. 'Right, someone explain to me what is going on.'

'It's them,' a small soldier said. 'The Vanguard.'

'Yeah,' Reeves said, pointing at me. 'But who are you?'

Typical.

The shale and gravel rose and flew outwards in a growing circle across the ground, like the shockwave from a small atomic bomb that had gone off under my feet. It was a very pleasing effect, very dramatic. The wave of stones fell like hail against the walls of the tunnel, the soldiers looked at me and then took a step backwards, a couple even took their caps off. They were stunned into silence.

'Show off,' Casino said.

'Why have they recognised us?' I said in Roach's ear, so they couldn't hear me.

'Maybe it's about time somebody did,' he said.

Mole Town was nothing like the Mole Town I'd heard about. It was a little top heavy on disturbed and violent men marching about and shouting but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, nor as isolated as we'd been led to believe. We were big in Mole Town. Cramp, Reeves's sidekick, was the biggest fan, he had all the figures and all the comics. He had even done some of his own drawings which were a little graphic and violent for my taste. The Colonel, or Steve, was still very confused but a pint or three of lethal homebrew soon focused his mind and Cramp filled him in on all our imaginary exploits. We did a few party tricks until Lola said she felt thought-sick, which was like being seasick but you couldn't get medication for it. Half an hour later, word had spread and almost the whole of Mole Town had crammed itself into the tunnel outside the Green Fusiliers Mess Hall and we soon found ourselves paraded down to the Death Watch encampment to meet the Mayor of Mole Town. Steve came with us to handle the introductions and Cramp came too. I'm not sure what he was supposed to handle but as long as it wasn't me I decided to stay relaxed about our new friends.

'Are they up to anything I wouldn't like?' I said to Lola. She'd given her red band to a soldier called Trigger, who was of the demographic Marshall had mentioned. She assured us that she didn't need it anymore. She was in better control. We were all in better control, more adept somehow, except Minos and me and our temper problems.

'No,' she said. 'They seem genuine enough. Although I wouldn't spend more than a minute alone with any of them, if you know what I mean. Nor Casino.'

The Mayor of Mole Town was taller than Roach. Roach had never met anyone taller than him and looked up at the Mayor in a mixture of amazement and gratitude as we stood outside the Mayor's official tented residence before the rank and file.

'I love you guys,' the Mayor said at typical Mole Town volume, deafening us. 'Your latest cartoon is awesome. You give them golden-haired freaks a sound pasting and I salute you all for that.'

'That is community-sourced content,' Casino said. 'Our official content is specifically non-political.'

'Are you on a mission right now?' the Mayor said to me, despite being rather reluctant to adhere to the hierarchy.

'Yes,' I said.

'Can you tell us about it?'

'No.'

'Not even a little clue?'

There was a great deal of murmuring from the crowd and I felt encouraged to give them a clue. It wasn't intimidating, not quite, but I didn't want us on the wrong side of the massed ranks of Mole Town.

'We're going to the old parliament building, to paste some more golden-haired freaks,' I said in the end.

A cheer went up.

'Step into my office,' the Mayor said. 'We may be of some use.'

We stepped inside. The tent smelt of old socks and sweat. Casino was about to sit down in a folding chair but then thought better of it. We all stood to attention.

'What are they doing at the House?' the Mayor said. He was not forthcoming about his actual name. 'They have no business in our great democratic seat. They are not worthy.'

'Who is?' I said.

'True,' he said. 'But you have more right to be there than them. Hell, I have more right to be there than them.'

'True,' Roach said.

'You need any help, soldier?' the Mayor said to Roach. 'I've got ten thousand men down here, just waiting to do some quality pasting.'

Roach looked at me. I was tempted to leave him to it, a little relieved the Mayor had reverted to type. He was one of those men who still, despite centuries of evidence to the contrary, couldn't imagine that speaking to a woman would ever be productive.

'No, we're fine,' I said.

'Let me show you something,' the Mayor said.

He led us through a flap in the back of the tent and down a dark tunnel which ended in a dead end. Everyone was tense, not bothering to act cool any more, we were watching Lola's face for a hint.

'A door?' she said. 'Where?'

The Mayor got a torch out of one of his many pockets and shone its beam on a rusty metal door handle that had been hidden in the shadows. 'Leads to our stores,' he said.

He unlocked the door and pulled on a long chain. Lights flickered on and we were standing at one end of an enormous store room, you could have kept the huge New Europan aeroplane in there. We followed the Mayor down through the main aisle, passed food, clothes, everything you could need and plenty of it.

'We've got suppliers up top,' the Mayor said. 'We've got everything you've got. Even this.'

We were at the other end of the room now before another door. Lola, who was getting a thought-preview of everything, looked most surprised. The Mayor unlocked the door and inside were about twenty narrow beds with a couple of bedrolls laid on the floor. They were all hooked up to a games server. It was a crude set up but a quick inspection revealed that it was functional and gave them access to an illegal gaming house run by one of Massey's rivals. I looked around at the men lying on the beds and on the floors, they twitched once in a while but otherwise looked lifeless.

'I don't suppose they're playing the Vanguard,' I said.

'They are,' the Mayor said.

'Is there a child link?' Minos said.

'A what?'

'A child link.'

'Let me get Archie,' the Mayor said. 'He's in charge of the stores.'

Archie looked like a small teenager, he had a fuzzy top lip that I suspected he was very proud of and a spotty forehead that I bet he wasn't so keen on. He almost threw himself to his knees when he recognised us. He couldn't keep his eyes still, they would slide over to Lola then he would blush and look somewhere else, then they slid back again. It was only a matter of time before they dropped out of his head all together, too exhausted to carry on. He was much younger than the flood. Some of the others, now that I thought about it, were younger than me too. They must have joined up in Mole Town. I couldn't imagine that, signing up to live underground in the dark. It was obvious it was tough down there. They might have done a good job of showing off for us but there were darker alleys that smelt like graves. There were still those stories that I couldn't stand to hear all the way through. I shuddered at the thought of what he must have run away from for that to be an improvement. And things were about to get worse if Rowling and her masters had their way.

'Child link, Archie, is there one?' the Mayor said.

'No, sir,' Archie said.

'Don't tell me, man, these people want to know. I have no idea what you're talking about.'

'Tell them,' Lola said, pointing to me and Minos.

Archie looked relieved. He was too sweet and too young to be starting on Lola. She'd chew him up and spit him before her first course. He wouldn't even be the starter.

'There was a child link but I broke it,' Archie said. 'It only let me because I use Handmade's server as a proxy, otherwise it was pretty robust.'

'Handmade?' Roach said.

'Massey's nemesis,' I said.

'We're too far from Massey,' said Archie. 'I'm sorry. I tried, I really did. He's awesome.'

'It's all right,' I said. 'Handmade pinched Massey's girlfriend, her business dealings are another matter.'

'This child link,' Minos said. 'What did it do exactly?'

'Well, it fed information into the game but it used the gamers interface to do it. I didn't like that, it was telling the boys what to do, so I disabled it.'

'Did you really get rid of it?' Minos said. 'All of it?'

'I deleted it completely, Sir,' Archie said. 'It's no longer in Handmade's system at all.'

'Nice work,' I said. Handmade's system was one of the biggest illegal ones and, unlike Massey, she had enough technical knowledge to supply other houses. The child link had been taken out of the chain and Imagination Industries, or whoever it was, wouldn't be able to feed those gamers. They might still get the data out but there was nothing we could do about that, it was the point of the games and the whole system was built on that premise. But now the game and all its players were free from any unwanted input. The vast majority of the underclass gamers were operating outside of the system, they were left to their own collective devices. It was very nice work.

'I thought to myself, what would the Vanguard think about that and what would they do,' Archie said. 'And I did it.'

'Like I told you,' the Mayor said. 'I have ten thousand men here who will follow you. Isn't that right, Archie?'

'Yes, Sir. To the death.'

'Because of the game?' Casino said.

'No, because of them up there and their administration and their golden-haired freaks. Games and toys got nothing to do with it. It's the idea of it, it's not right and we've taken too much,' said Archie. 'Sorry, Sir. I interrupted.'

'Well, we're in no position to ask people to follow us,' I said with as much finality as I could manage. It wasn't up for discussion. 'We don't have a plan beyond getting to the building and stopping this ceremony. Not for getting out, not for what we do next. I wouldn't follow us.'

'It's not up to you,' the Mayor said. 'It's up to them.'

'I get people killed,' I said.

'In my experience, people get themselves killed,' the Mayor said. 'And I bet I've got more experience than a slip of lassie like you.'

An alarm went off and we located Minos as the source.

'We need to get moving,' he said, consulting the old wrist watch. 'We're on a tight schedule here.'

'You need supplies,' the Mayor said. 'You'll be going underwater and I don't see any scuba gear.'

'Scuba gear,' Casino slapped his forehead. 'Why didn't we think of that?'

'You have it?' the Mayor said. 'Is he being sarcastic?'

'No, he isn't,' I said. 'And no, we don't.'

'That's OK. You had to come through here and we've got it,' the Mayor said.

'Don't say it,' I said to Archie who'd opened his mouth.

'Say what?' Roach said.

'That it's like a game,' I said. 'That we're passing through the levels.'

'I thought you were the mind reader,' the Mayor said to Lola.

We hurried around the storeroom getting kitted out. We accepted scuba gear but declined camouflage face paint, much to Casino's disappointment.

'That will only work in the jungle,' Minos said. 'Not in an ancient seat of parliament.'

'We'll take you to Fawkes Gate,' the Mayor said. 'It will be an honour.'

'You leave us there though,' I said.

'We'll see.'

'Waistband,' Lola said.

I felt for his gun and thought-slipped it out of his trousers and into my hand before he could move. I thought-rattled the knife in his boot and gave him a friendly smile. 'I would decide now, if I were you.'

The Mayor grinned. 'All right. You can handle it. But we'll be waiting for word from you, for as long as we need to.'

We marched down the tunnels with about fifty soldiers of fortune. Well, they marched and we kind of half jogged in among them. They could get up to quite impressive speeds, they must have been drafting like I did on the bike. It wasn't long until we found the edge of the water. By the time we reached the Gate it was knee high. Every so often I could feel something brush against my ankles, but I decided it would be better not to think about it too much. Archie got everyone's autographs on the way and we were saluted with great ceremony a few metres from the gate.

'We'll have to blow it open, it's rusted shut,' said Cramp, after an awkward moment where a few soldiers hovered around us not sure how to ask us to move us out of the way of all the plastic explosives.

The heavy latch on the door complained as it opened itself, sliding back with a shower of rust.

'Or you could just use your super telekinesis and open it that way,' Cramp led the cheers.

'We'll be seeing you, I'm sure,' the Colonel said as we stepped into the blackness beyond the gate. It slammed shut behind us and we stood, for a moment in utter darkness.

We checked our maps, once Minos had lit the torches Mole Town supplied, and figured we had about half a mile to go until we reached the cellars. It was difficult to work out just where we'd hit the deep water. I wasn't looking forward to being in a narrow tunnel filled with water despite assurances from various soldiers in Mole Town about how it would all be fine.

'What is that smell?' Roach said.

'It's the stink of years of corruption soaked into the brick and mortar,' Casino grinned.

'It's this water,' Minos said. 'I'm sure things keep nibbling at me.'

'It burns a little, don't you find?' Lola said.

The passageway we were following went down in a slight decline until we were waist deep in water with our bags on our heads. It was around then the complaining started.

'So, let me get this straight. You are saying that we should have stolen an Enforce helicopter and landed it on the roof?' Minos said.

'Yes,' Casino said.

'And, ignoring for a moment the obviousness of our arrival, you can fly a helicopter?'

'No, but Sorcha could make it move, couldn't you?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I don't see why not.'

'There, why didn't we do that?' Casino said.

'Because it's entirely outside our comfort zone,' Lola said. 'Flying about in helicopters powered by thought alone. We're more the creeping around in dark, submerged tunnels types.'

'Well, I'm not,' Casino said. 'I have sensitive skin.'

'What's that noise?' Roach said.

We all listened with our heads tilted to one side, as though that helped. I could hear voices and the occasional fuzzy crackle of a radio receiver.

'Enforce,' Minos said. 'There's an opening up ahead, they must be standing guard in there.'

'Can we go round them?' Lola said.

'No,' Minos showed her the map. 'We have to go through them.'

I experimented with a small wave of water, pushing it down the passageway the way we'd come. Once I'd established that I could make a wall of water from floor to ceiling the plan fell into place.

'Could you do that all the way there?' Minos said. 'Then we wouldn't need to put all this gear on, or nearly drown.'

'Maybe,' I said, not even convincing myself. 'But where would the water end up?'

Casino disappeared and followed the wall of dark water as it moved toward the Enforce unit, with us at a safer distance behind. The wave crashed into the room soaking everyone. As we arrived they were sprawled on the floor spluttering, up to their necks in water. The water began to separate like it was in rewind. It moved back to the water behind us, leaving the room dry. Our clothes dried as droplets were sucked back to the passageway to fall like rain. The water stood in a wall in the doorway. A pale fish swam up the edge and stared out as though it were in a tank before swimming away. An invisible Casino pulled up an assault rifle from the hand of one of them as they tried to scramble to their feet. He swung it into the face of the baffled officer who went down again, out cold. A small, fair-haired officer who was a little sharper than the others went for his gun, it lay near him on the sandy floor. I expected it to fail after its dunking but Roach had the sense to push me out of the way and a bullet hit the wall. A handful of the dry sand from the floor flew into the officer's eyes and he staggered into the path of Roach's martial arts kick.

'Who's next?' Minos said, holding a small ball of flames in his hand.

The three officers dropped to their knees and put their hands on their heads.

'As if we're going to fall for that,' Lola said. 'Left inside pocket, Casino.'

The first officer looked on in dumb shock as his jacket opened and a hand gun slipped out of his pocket of its own accord.

'Waistband and inside his right boot,' Lola said.

Again the man was relieved of his weapons. By the time we got to the third one he had a wild look in his eyes and a long knife in his hand.

'I wouldn't do anything stupid if I were you,' I said.

'I'll kill all of you,' he said.

His jacket pulled itself up over his head and down over his face, twisting itself into a knot around his neck. Roach knocked him out with another kick to the side of his head. Casino reappeared.

'Right, you two. You've got two choices,' Minos rolled the ball of flames around the front and the back of his hand in a merry dance. 'You can get up and run down that passage where you'll get a bit wet and bump into the Black Watch. Or you can stay here with us.'

I stepped aside to clear the path to the passageway and they fought each other for the right to get out of the door first and fastest.

'How did they make it do that?' Lola said. She pushed a finger into the wall of water and pulled it out again. The water stayed where it was. It looked as though a sheet of glass or plastic were holding it back but there was nothing there, just obedient water.

'Magic,' Minos said. 'Do we dump the scuba gear?'

We ended up having to vote but we elected to leave it. We tied the three unconscious officers to each other with their belts, Minos melting the buckles with a precise heat so they couldn't free themselves without a lengthy struggle. We threw all the weapons into the water, having removed all the ammunition. The radio unit suggested there were other similar units dotted around but not many and none on our route. We soon found out why.

The Galearii was sitting on the stone steps that lead up to the cellars and into the House proper. We'd sent Casino ahead on reconnaissance and he took Lola as close as he could so she could see what the angel was thinking.

'It's not thinking anything,' she said.

'Nothing?' Roach said.

'Not a thing.'

'So maybe they don't think,' Casino said.

'Well, that's no good is it?' Lola said. 'What use am I?'

We made supportive noises. 'It can't see the invisible, can it?' Minos said.

'I don't think so,' Casino said.

'You don't think so?'

'Well, it might be pretending,' Casino said.

'We could just hit it over the head,' Roach said.

'Shall I creep up on it and hit it over the head then?' Casino said. 'There are bits of wood and stuff in there. I could easily find something to bash it with.'

'Yes, why don't you do that,' I said. 'Hit it really hard though.'

We moved toward the room and its meditative Galearii. Casino disappeared and we watched footprints appearing in the sand as he walked away.

'Is that going to be a problem?' Roach said, pointing at them.

'A little help here,' Casino's voice rose above a lot of crashing and banging that didn't sound very encouraging.

We ran to his assistance. He was nowhere to be seen but the Galearii was clinging onto something for dear life \- Casino's waist, it looked like. Minos threw a fireball at the Galearii's head and its hair caught fire for a moment, long enough for it to let go of Casino. The angel stood up and straightened its suit jacket and checked the knot of its tie. It bowed a little, from the waist, to Roach and then approached. Roach dodged its first kick but his block to the Galearii's right hand as it flew toward him allowed the Galearii to pull him off balance. It was fast. Roach fell to the floor and Minos threw another fireball, it hit the Galearii in the temple then fell to the ground in a shower of ash. Minos tried again and again but the angel seemed unperturbed. It burnt but it didn't seem to hurt it. The Galearii pulled its knife from a scabbard inside its jacket, just under its arm. It slashed at the air with it and shouted something.

'Never,' Roach said, but then the angel had him around the throat and Roach's face was soon swollen with the effort to breath.

A short plank of dry, splintered wood hit the Galearii around the head, it shattered into shards of sawdust and Casino appeared as the angel reached up from where it knelt on the ground and slashed Casino in the side. Casino disappeared as he crumpled. The Galearii's expensive silk tie began to twist towards the ceiling, up and up it snaked, dragging the angel up after it. The tie knotted itself around a pipe running from the top of one wall to the opposite wall and the Galearii hung there, choking.

'Let's go,' I said. I had no desire to stay there while it either freed itself or died. I couldn't decide which would be worse.

# Chapter Sixteen

'How is it?' Lola said.

'It's stopped bleeding,' Casino said, pulling his top back down. 'It was just a scratch.'

'Could he see you?' Roach said.

'Not quite. But I don't think they're unfamiliar with the concept,' he said. 'It didn't seem half so surprised as Enforce did.'

We stopped in an anteroom after ten minutes half running, half walking, down an ever-narrowing passage that seemed to twist and turn until we had no idea which direction we were heading in. Minos consulted a map, running a finger that shook a little along the lines drawn there. Our torches were beginning to flicker as they drained the mixed vegetable oil soaked into their rags.

'There's a door ahead,' he said. 'And on the other side of that door are thousands more like the one we've just narrowly beaten despite generous odds.' Minos gave Roach the cartridge for Vermina's gun.

'I don't want that,' Roach said.

'Take it, you're the least likely to use it,' Minos said.

'What about you,' he said to me.

'You're kidding, right? She's been waiting years to get rid of Minos,' Casino said.

Minos grinned with his mouth but the rest of his face didn't join in.

'Casino, get to the robe room and find five robes,' I said.

'How do I get them back?' he said.

'Put one on and carry the rest,' I said. 'Make it look official. You know the drill.'

We watched his footprints appearing the sand as he ran to the door. It opened and closed. There was no going back.

The robes were heavy, made of velvet with fur edging around the huge hoods. I doubted that even Tourniquet would look good in one. Lola's dragged along the floor behind her and Roach's hung mid-calf. Casino and I looked like we were being swallowed up by ours and Minos looked like a tramp, but he always looked like that. We pulled our hoods up and looked like occult monks, corrupt and corpulent.

'Right, we need to set up here if we can,' Minos pointed to a room on the map, it was up the bell tower. 'This is the rendezvous point when something goes wrong.'

'If,' Casino said. 'Surely you mean if something goes wrong?'

The door opened on to a long hallway with a thick red carpet that should have been water damaged. But everything looked pristine, not period authentic but real. Windows along one side of the hallway let in a murky light. The glass was warm to the touch and the water reached two thirds of the way up. The weight of it should have broken the windows but this water, like that in the tunnels below, was very well behaved. We followed Minos along the hallway, passing grand paintings of people they didn't bother to teach children about anymore and great vases with elaborate red and gold patterns. Behind heavy double doors at the end was a room filled with rows of coats hooks on long stands arranged in neat intervals along the room.

'Cloakroom,' Minos said. 'Not being used today. It's through the next room, an armoury as was, and then to the right.'

The armoury was enormous, and empty of everything apart from a few wall-hung tapestries depicting bloody and gruesome battles. And Latch. He was standing in the middle of the room facing the other door but when he heard us enter he turned around, almost in slow motion. He was wearing a thin cotton robe, in grey. It was threadbare in some places and torn in others. He looked better than when I'd seen him before but still not right. We had no choice but to walk around him as though we had every right to be there, but as Lola passed him he reached down and pulled her hood from her head. There was no question that he would recognise her. His face was calm and relaxed but his eyes were wild, like he was trying to crawl out of his mind. The tapestries ripped themselves from the wall and tried to wrap themselves around him but they were too unwieldy and I lost my grasp on them. It all happened so fast. Casino dropped his robe and tried to get his bag from around his body to swing at Latch but Latch was dancing out of the way like a prize fighter. Roach pointed the gun at Latch's forehead, his hand trembling. He pulled the trigger and the gun gave an empty click as it jammed. Latch hit him in the jaw with his right fist and Roach stumbled. Then Latch cried out in something like pain, and a little confusion maybe, as he was forced to his knees. Lola was staring at him with a strange look on her face.

'It's too strong,' she said as Latch struggled to his feet again.

He roared and ran toward her. Then Minos rushed at him and leapt on him in a bear hug as he burst into flames. It was hard to see what was happening in the confusion of flames and limbs, but somehow Latch caught him around the throat, even though the flames caught his robe and the cloth began to burn away. I could hear Minos choking but the fire burnt as bright as ever, consuming them both. Latch whimpered but hung on. There was no smoke but the smell, the smell was all I could think about.

Then the fire went out.

Latch fell to his knees, his clothes gone, his skin going, he was unrecognisable but he was still alive. He was making a sound like a wounded animal. He got to his feet somehow, like an unwished for miracle and staggered away. I heard a door slam behind me but I didn't care where he had gone. Latch had thrown Minos from him. He was lying on the ground, his face turned into the red carpet and his left arm twisted behind him. One of his shoes had fallen off, it lay on its side with its laces coming undone like they always were. Lola shook her head and her tears escaped down her cheeks. I looked at her so I didn't have to look at Mino anymore.

He was dead.

I don't know how long we stood there. A long time. Until I picked up Minos's bag and the map.

'Roach and Lola. Take him to the bell tower, if anyone asks he fainted in the excitement,' I said. 'Casino. Find the main hall and then met them in the bell tower.'

'What about you?' Lola said.

'I'll just be a minute,' I said. He was my best friend since before I was three and he was four. We'd been through everything together. They knew this so they did as I asked without saying a word.

Roach carried Minos away like he weighed nothing at all. I put the tapestries back on the wall to occupy my mind and stood in the middle of the room feeling useless but not much else. Lola said I'd get someone else killed but she said it would be me. I should've made her promise. I heard the door open and thought for a moment it might be Latch coming back but it was the other door. A man with his hood pulled up backed into the room with a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in other. He pulled the hood off and was about to light up when he saw me.

'Hey, you are here,' Tourniquet said. 'What's with you? You don't write, you don't call?'

'That's me,' my voice sounded all wrong.

'What's the matter?'

'My...'

'What?' he shoved the cigarette and lighter into his trouser pocket, inside his robes, and came across the room.

'Nothing,' I said. 'It's fine.'

'You don't look like it's fine,' he pushed my hair aside so it wasn't hanging into my eyes.

I stepped back and he looked thoughtful. I wasn't sure if I liked that.

'Well, what do we have here?' said a voice I recognised from the news.

Tourniquet turned and I saw Terminus shut the armoury door with him on the wrong side.

'Good afternoon, Agent Tourniquet,' Terminus said.

'Good afternoon, Lord Protector. That is right, isn't it?' Tourniquet said.

'Yes, perfect,' Terminus said. 'And you are?'

'Not important,' I said.

'Au contraire,' Terminus said. 'I know who you are, forgive me, I was being disingenuous. I have heard all about you. I get a little report from my new Minister of Securities on my desk every morning with your lovely face staring out at me.'

'Can I take this silly robe off then?' I said.

'Be my guest,' Terminus said.

I shrugged it to the floor.

'No respect for property, these people,' Terminus said to Tourniquet.

'They are very uncomfortable,' Tourniquet said.

'Crowns are also uncomfortable I hear,' Terminus said. 'I think it comes with the territory.'

'What are you going to do with her?' Tourniquet said as though he was asking what the weather would be like tomorrow.

'Try her for the murders of Chichester Rhone, Tulan Haq and Latch.'

'The Guardian is dead?' Tourniquet said.

'No, but he will be. He's badly injured and his mind has gone,' he chuckled. 'Of course, it had gone before but it had gone where we wanted it to, now he's raving and no use to anyone. He's certainly no Lord Protector's Guardian, not in that state. There's no point in my controlling a mind like that.'

'I'm assuming it was you lot,' Tourniquet said to me. 'How did you do it?'

'Fire,' Terminus said. 'Is the pyromancer dead?'

'No,' I said.

'Funny,' Terminus said. 'It is written.'

'It is?' I said to Tourniquet. I wouldn't believe that, I couldn't. 'In one of your books?'

'Yes, I'm afraid it is,' Tourniquet said. 'He's dead, Terminus. He has to be.'

'Excellent,' Terminus said. 'It's good to know everything is going as planned. The peasants are so predictable. Even now they're massing outside with their pathetic protest and their tiny heroes but it's all for nothing. Your fiery little friend has died for no reason other than to turn the pages of the prophecy. Decent of him, and you, to make the sacrifice.'

The tapestries on the walls billowed as though a strong wind had blown around the room, they snapped like sails.

'You'll need reinforcements, Terminus,' Tourniquet said.

'She's going to come quietly,' Terminus said. 'Because if she doesn't I'm going to round up every single one of her remaining friends and she can watch while the Galearii tear them apart.' He ran two fingers around the inside of his collar. It was a tight fit. 'I'm interested to know how you two know each other though, before we go,' his voice was a little hoarse.

Terminus's collar tore away from his shirt as if it had been ripped off. I remembered on the ship I'd thought I couldn't move a body, but then I found that I could. I figured that being inanimate didn't matter so much, it was only semantics after all. Terminus didn't notice he wasn't touching the floor until there were a couple of inches of air beneath him. His feet fluttered, searching for the floor, but he was rising, rising up toward the wood panelled ceiling.

'I'm keen to know more about you controlling the mind of the Guardian,' I said.

'Sorcha,' Tourniquet said. 'What are you doing?'

Terminus spluttered and stammered as he rose, he was floating lighter than air. If he'd just stopped struggling it would have felt wonderful. I was only lifting him up.

'Because if you were controlling his mind, that would mean that you killed the pyromancer, wouldn't it?' I said.

'Stop,' Tourniquet grabbed my arm. There was something in the way he said it that caught all of my attention, just for a moment. It was long enough. Audi Terminus fell to the floor with a crack, blood pooled around his head.

'Well,' Tourniquet said after a moment. 'The score's tied.'

'No, it's not,' I said. 'I owe them another two.' I wanted to say that it had been an accident, that I hadn't meant it, like I hadn't meant it before at Stadium City.

'Follow me,' he said. 'We need to get you out of here.'

My brain slipped itself into neutral and I followed him as he turned left, away from the bell tower. We slipped up a narrow staircase to the second floor before we reached a throng of robed people all milling about drinking from fluted glass and talking over each other. I could hear international accents all around me, a little Oceanic, some New Canadian. It was getting hard to keep everything under control. I could feel how all the objects around me would move, just one misplaced thought and they would all go flying around our heads. A suit of armour on a wooden plinth rattled as we rushed by.

'He's fine, just a little nervous,' Rowling said as we rounded a corner. She was standing up ahead looking out of a window, on a call with her back to us. Tourniquet opened a small door in the wall near where I'd come to a sudden halt and before I could say anything, he pushed me inside and shut the door. The room was small and dusty, the glass in the narrow window dark with dirt. Without that window it would have been a cupboard. I could hear Tourniquet and Rowling talking. I peered through the keyhole. Tourniquet was leaning against the wall opposite the door looking like he had all the time in the world to lounge about. Rowling was standing in profile, her posture cramped with age.

'Is it done?' Rowling said.

'Yes, of course.'

'Good, he was becoming demanding.'

'How so?'

'Money, mostly. Terminus never had any class.'

'How tedious.'

'You didn't kill him though? We need to keep you out of anything unsavoury.'

'Of course not, she did. My hands are clean,' he held them up to prove it.

'And your conscience?'

They both laughed that private joke laugh, the kind people do when they are very familiar with each other.

'Vermina thinks they're harmless, but then she would,' Rowling turned to him, I could see his face over her shoulder. 'Galen wants a new Lord Protector. You are the obvious choice, don't you think?'

'Well, I'm happy to step in given that time is pressing. If you don't want the role?'

'You know me, Tourniquet. I want the power, not the prestige. Besides I know my face doesn't fit.'

'Yet,' Tourniquet said.

'So, they're just putting the final touches to the hall and preparing the Father then we'll be ready to go,' Rowling said in a loud voice, making me jump.

'Excellent, excellent,' Tourniquet said at a similar volume.

A robed figure walked between the door and the conspirators. They were being secretive about their plans. I could hear doors opening and closing along the corridors like someone was looking for something. Rowling and Tourniquet waited for the figure to pass but the footsteps came back towards the door.

'Excuse me,' a voice said. 'Technical problem.'

'Does everyone really have to wear a robe? It seems a bit over the top,' Tourniquet said.

'If they are front of house, yes,' Rowling said. 'It's all about creating the right appearance. We can't have a load of unwashed people wandering around in overalls.'

The door opened, I just had time to hide behind it so Rowling didn't see me.

Casino pulled the robe off. 'Is that who I think it is?' he said under his breath with a wan smile. 'He looks different with clothes on.'

'Now is not the time,' I said.

'Put this on,' he said and disappeared.

'How did you know I was here?'

'I was following you,' he said.

I opened the door with my hood up and my head down and began to walk down the corridor.

'Everything all right?' Tourniquet said.

'Yes,' Casino said, so they would hear the voice they expected. 'Wiring issue.'

We made our way to the bell tower through the large crowd waiting to get into the hall, there was great anticipation everywhere. Casino appeared halfway up the stairs to the tower. They'd laid Minos out on a bench. He looked like he was asleep but having a terrible nightmare from which he was desperate to wake. I could only look at him out of the corner of my eye.

'Found her,' Casino said.

'Terminus is dead,' I said.

'What happened?' Roach said.

'I dropped him,' I said and sat on the floor as my legs gave up. 'Oh, and Agent Tourniquet is the new Lord Protector.'

'I see,' Lola said.

There was very uncomfortable silence. 'Casino, how bad is it?' Roach said.

'It's pretty bad,' Casino said. 'They're not looking for us but they have closed down the perimeter so we can't get out. This also means no one can get in so we can't call on Mole Town.'

'We can't do that anyway, it's not fair,' I said.

Lola raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

'I agree,' Roach said. 'So, we're trapped.'

'Yes,' Casino said. 'The only option we have, as far as I can tell, is to carry on with the plan and stop whatever is going to happen. Any clues Lola?'

'The Father is in a chamber above ground, I can find it,' Lola said. 'Someone was thinking about taking him something to eat.'

'Sorcha,' Roach said. 'What do you think?'

'This can't be for nothing,' I pointed towards Minos but I still couldn't look at him. 'So we find the Father and get rid of him.'

'Another one,' Casino said. 'We're getting good at this.'

'It's all right,' Lola said to me, reading a thought, or perhaps my face. 'It's all right.'

By cross referencing the impression Lola had plucked from someone's head with the map we worked out that the Galearii's goon could be hidden in one of three places. One was more likely than the others so we donned our robes and left Minos alone. The parliament building had been extended over time, with great enthusiasm but not much planning. The offices and studies clustered at the west end of the building were over a jumble of different levels, scattered between staircases. We knew we'd gone up more than down but beyond that we were teetering on the verge of confusion. We heard voices from a room just below us. They were speaking Galearian.

'They're talking about preparing the vessel,' Roach said. 'For the ceremony.'

He listened some more, his chin resting on top of his fingertips.

'I'll go and see who's down there,' Casino said, fading from view.

'They're just running through some things about the ceremony. It's an ancient ritual and the... there isn't a word in English, it's like a priest but not, this person has been preparing for years and now it is all coming together. They are very excited,' Roach said.

'How much longer?' said a voice.

Lola almost fell down the stairs in surprise. It sounded like Stark.

'That must be the Father,' Roach said.

Casino materialised. 'It's not him,' he said.

'Who?' Roach said.

'It's not Stark,' Casino said.

'That's a relief,' I said.

'It really sounds like him,' Lola said.

'It's not, he's about two hundred years old,' Casino said. 'I've never seen anyone so old.'

Just like Rowling.

'He's with three Galearii,' Casino said.

'They're going to leave him,' Roach said. 'The Father is to wait alone and pray. Well, not pray but gather his thoughts. Like meditating, maybe. There's not really a direct translation for that either.'

'There's another exit,' Casino said. 'The door they came through and this one.'

We heard a door close and crept down the rest of the stairs. An ornate throne stood in the middle of the room, its tall back to us, hiding anyone sitting in it. The rest of the room was empty. The sunlight streamed in through a dusty window.

'Is someone there?'

Roach peered over the top of the throne. 'Hello,' he said. 'How are you?'

'I'm very well, thank you,' the old man said. 'How are you?'

'Fine, thank you,' Roach said.

'What are you doing?' Lola said.

'Oh, hello. I'm preparing for the ceremony,' he said. 'Are you coming?'

'Yes,' Casino said.

'Anyone else back there?'

'Only me,' I stood in front of him.

He was tiny. His feet didn't touch the ground. He had light grey eyes hooded by heavy lids. The lower half of his wrinkled face was caving into loose jowls. He was wearing a white robe with gold piping around the cuffs, collar and hem. He was far too old for his voice, it was as though he hadn't used it much.

'There are only four of you,' he said. 'I think everyone is expecting five. Has something happened?'

'You could say that,' I said.

'I am sorry,' he said. 'Is that why my Protector and Guardian have disappeared?'

'You could say that too,' I said.

'I see,' the man said. 'I suppose I should have expected that.' He said something in Galearian. His accent wasn't as good as Rowling's.

'Evil is as evil does,' Roach said.

'Evil?' Casino said. 'We're the good guys, grandpa.'

'I'm afraid you're not. You are the darkness before the dawn. You are evil,' then he pointed at me. 'You particularly.'

'Whatever you say,' I said.

'You are here to kill me, aren't you?' he said. 'I would say that is evil. I have no power. I am defenceless. A defenceless old man.'

'He's right,' Lola said. 'He has no power.'

'I am just a vessel,' the old man said. 'After the ceremony I will be the Father but right now I am just a defenceless old man.'

'Keep saying that and we might believe it,' Casino said.

'You heard her, I have no power.'

'It's not about that though,' I said. 'It's all about what people think you are, not what you are. You know that.'

'Yes, you're right. I am a symbol. And it is the symbols that are important. Maybe you should kill me.'

I wanted a glass of champagne in an elegant hotel with a woman who could look like anyone you wanted. That would clear my head. Or cloud it. I couldn't think. I just wanted to know what Minos thought we should do.

'I suppose you believe we can carry on like this,' the old man said. 'The world I mean.'

'No, things need to change,' Lola said. 'Just not like this.'

Why not?' the old man said.

'Too much power in the hands of too few,' I said. 'The few who bought it.'

The old man laughed, it was too youthful and joyful for his mouth. 'Who would have thought that when the end came it would be so long and drawn out. No one. They thought they would go out with a big bang, in the same way they thought we came in. Or that we'd destroy everything and struggle on with nothing for a few years until we succumbed to starvation, or radiation, or mass psychosis. But this? Who expected this? It's extraordinary. Decades pass and still we limp on. And what for? Nothing.'

'No, not for nothing,' Roach said.

'For friendship, for love?' the old man laughed again. 'These are tiny things, tiny things. Just specks. There are much more important things than those. The time has come for them now.'

'And that's your time, is it?' I said. 'What a coincidence.'

'No,' the old man said. 'It is not for me to take the place of the old gods. I have angels for that.'

'The Galearii?' said Roach.

'They aren't angels,' Lola said. 'We've seen them, waiting for orders. They're nothing.'

'They are just the bodies. There are three minds. They change bodies as they wish but the three minds, and the three minds alone, are the Galearii.'

There were three when Doodle died and three at the warehouse. Three talking to the old man. The three are close to the end, Prophet had said. It was there all along.

He pointed to Lola's wrist and her wristset. 'What does that do?' he said.

She looked confused, 'Lots of things, sends messages, let's me talk to people, find out information.'

'I suppose you know about the web and these games and all that, the technology?'

'Of course,' she said.

'Dark magic,' the old man snorted. 'The filth flying around in the air that no one can see. It is time for some order. Did you see that water? How they held it back?'

'Yes,' Casino said.

'That is what we should use magic for, for good useful things.'

'Where have you come from?' Roach said.

'And when?' Casino said.

The old man laughed again. Looking at him I expected a cacophony of ancient lungs and blocked airways but his laugh was full of impetuous, energetic promises. 'You think you know everything, with your clever, busy air and yet you know nothing. They've been here, right under your nose all along and you were too arrogant to see it.' He paused for a moment to catch his breath. 'No, no, not arrogant. Complacent.'

'Well, you have some very interesting opinions,' I said, fighting back the rise of a hot nausea in my throat. 'And it's been a real pleasure to meet you but we have to go and get ready for the ceremony.'

'Then I will see you later,' the old man closed his eyes.

We scurried back up the stairs.

'What are we doing?' Casino said. 'We had him.'

'Don't ask me,' I said. 'She did it.'

'I'm sorry,' Lola said. 'But I need to tell you something important.'

Lola had placed in my mind the very strong inclination to say certain things and walk up the stairs.

'It had better be good,' I said.

'That old man is not sure about all this at all,' Lola said. 'He's worried about the ceremony. He thinks they are lying to him and mean to kill him as some kind of sacrifice. His memories don't start very long ago, that worries him. He is a bundle of anxiety.'

We all looked at her waiting for the punch line.

'And?' Casino said.

'And? He's just an old man. Like he said,' Lola said. 'Could we turn him, make him a double agent?'

'Now is not the time for doubts,' I said. 'If we could turn everyone, then it would work.'

'Says you,' she glared at me. 'You've got doubts.'

'You're supposed to be able to switch it on and off,' I said. 'I'd prefer it if you didn't trample through my head whenever you felt like it.'

'Mine either,' Casino said.

'I don't need to, it's written all over your face,' Lola said. 'I'm not having doubts. It's the only way I'll get Stark back. Isn't it?'

Roach held his hands up to plead for calm. We heard the door downstairs open. The Galearii were back. I had to act fast.

'Hey,' I shouted. 'We're up here.'

They looked at me in shock for a moment then Roach bundled me to the floor and Casino got his hand over my mouth. I could feel Lola rummaging around on the edge of my thoughts but I wasn't going to let her in. I wriggled free of Casino's hand. The three of them were getting in each other's way, unwilling to inflict the pain that would shut me up. I took full advantage.

'Hey, we're up here!'

The Galearii ran up the stairs as I heard more footsteps running into the room below. They dragged Roach and Casino off me and pulled me to my feet.

'Hello,' I dusted myself down. 'I'm here. Sorry to have kept you.'

Close up, the Galearii were beautiful, but only in the most objective sense. There was nothing desirable about them, their beauty didn't take your heart anywhere, only your head. They looked as though they had been designed by a masterful eye, as well proportioned as an anatomical diagram. They had almost black eyes that you could see the room, yourself even, reflected in. And then there was the hair. It looked like the spun gold of fairytales. One had his, or maybe her, fingers around my arms in a very firm grip as we were hauled down the stairs. I could hear Roach struggling and more Galearii were running up the stairs to help. The one holding me said something in Galearian. I looked at Roach for a translation, but he was looking at the floor. The old man obliged.

'Galen says your timing is impeccable,' he said.

'This is not Galen,' I said. It was another ordinary one.

'No. His mind is here,' the old man said. 'It's everywhere the other two are not.'

The Galearii said something else and bowed.

'You are to watch the ceremony, of course,' the old man said. 'Then...'

'Then what?' Casino said.

'Then we die,' Roach shot me a look that wished me a million miseries. 'Well, some of us do.'

'No,' Lola shook her head. 'This isn't right. It can't be.'

My Galearii guard let me walk a little in front of him, I was the model of co-operation, but the others were not so well behaved. Nine Galearii had to pull and push Roach to get him to move anywhere. Casino only needed two of them but they didn't let go of his arms, he tried disappearing but they clung on to him and he couldn't go anywhere. Lola had given up, one Galearii pulled her behind like a broken toy. We were all cuffed with the thin plastic ties that Enforce used during mass arrests. They had to be cut off because they were too sharp for fingers to grip and pull open.

Rowling and Tourniquet were waiting for us in a room deep in the twisted bowels of the building. It should have been underwater but instead the broad flagstones on the ground were smooth and dry.

'Hello,' I said.

Tourniquet saluted with three fingers to his temple and Rowling leant back in her chair like a big city tycoon pondering profit margins.

'I wondered when you'd turn up,' she said.

'Here I am,' I said.

'You brought friends,' she said. 'How kind. If you hold on for a second your friends can play with my friends.'

'Do you have paddling pool? Or a sand pit?' I said.

'It's a soundproofed room with a heavy lock but I think they'll still have fun,' she said.

I rubbed my wrists as the ties binding them fell to the floor. 'They were a bit tight,' I said. There was a thin line of blood on the inside of my wrist.

The Galearii stepped forward with some more cuffs but Rowling waved him away. 'They won't hold her,' she said, then looked at me. 'Why don't you undo the others? Not on the best of terms anymore?'

'Maybe later,' I said.

'It is written that your powers increase the closer to the Father you get,' Tourniquet said. 'All of your powers.'

'There are a lot of things written,' I said.

'Yes,' Rowling said. 'In important books too, not scrappy little comics and tatty flyers.'

'I bet you don't spray things on walls either,' I said.

There was a change in the atmosphere, our guards seemed to stand up straighter somehow. Even Tourniquet stopped slouching against the desk.

'Welcome,' Rowling stood up.

Three Galearii walked between us. These were the three. They had a power, a charisma that the others lacked. They were lit from within by it. One said something to Rowling.

'Of course,' she said. 'This is Galen, Gama and Galipolan. The three.'

'Hello,' I said, somehow I could tell them apart. They were each different. 'We're the five.'

'Four,' Lola said, spitting the word at me.

'Yes,' I said. 'Maths never was my strong point.'

'That's not maths,' Tourniquet said, as though making a very important and wise point. 'It's arithmetic.'

Galen spoke at length, Rowling nodded once or twice and at one point Roach made a sudden gesture and ended up under a pile of Galearii for his trouble. I waited for a translation.

'You will attend the ceremony, of course,' Rowling said. 'It will be good for your followers to see you here with us, joining in the celebrations. Then when they realise it was you that killed, let's see it's quite a list now isn't it? When they realise that you killed Rhone, Haq and Terminus to smooth the way for us, they won't be very pleased. But when you're executed for those crimes they'll appreciate what we've done for them, we'll make sure of that. The Vanguard will be dismissed as the fairytale it always was. You will be forgotten about. Not even a footnote in history.'

Casino tried to disappear again and had about as much success as Roach had trying to get out from under his escort. Lola let out a sound halfway between a sob and a derisive snort.

'We're getting a pretty rough deal there,' I kept my voice even and amiable.

Gama spoke then.

'Not you,' Rowling said. 'We're going to keep you.'

I hit the ground as though someone had hit me hard on the side of my head, but no one had touched me. It was Lola. She ripped into my mind with such force that the room tilted and whirled, roaring at me. She didn't get anything because I blacked out. Her fury was too much.

# Chapter Seventeen

'There's no point locking her in because there are about five hundred ways she can get out,' Tourniquet said to Rowling. 'They'll have to watch her.'

'You're a great help,' I sat up, rubbing my head. I was waiting for the pain to set in but it still didn't hurt.

'Shouldn't they be armed?' he waved at the Galearii foot soldiers.

'They don't need to be armed,' Rowling smiled. 'Wait until you see them in action.'

I had been lying, a study of unconcern, on a wide plank that hung from the wall on chains making a very uncomfortable bed. I was in a cell with bars instead of walls. The cells next to mine were empty but opposite Roach, Lola and Casino were lined up in identical cells. There was a monitor close to the ceiling in the corner of the room running a news channel. It was showing live coverage of the ceremony with various dignitaries doing rehearsed pieces to camera on the steps outside. Reporters were talking to excited people who'd been let out of the Work and Labour offices for the day like rent-a-crowd. The three Galearii had gone.

'We thought we'd better separate you,' Tourniquet said. 'Although she can probably get to you from over there.'

He glanced at Lola and then looked a little puzzled by events, as though he expected a different outcome.

'We have to go,' Rowling said, she was standing in the narrow path between the cells. 'I don't think we need waste any more time on these people. I need to give that statement and you need to run through your speech.' She said something else in Galearian to our captors and they all moved to stand guard as though choreographed.

'See you later,' I said.

Tourniquet gave me a look I didn't care to understand before he followed her, on his way he put the volume up on the television. I could just hear their footstep on the stone steps over the commentary as I watched my friends turn their backs on me. Lola lay on the cot in her cell and Casino sat on his, but Roach paced back and forth like a caged tiger at the back of his cell. The room was full of people but I was alone. I tried to empty my head of everything, not because of Lola but because I needed to keep a cool head, if I panicked myself into doing something stupid it was all over. The television pictures broke away from the jollity outside to a very sombre Rowling. She was about to give her speech.

'It is with great sadness and regret that I announce the death of Audi Terminus. He was killed earlier today by a known terrorist organisation. Terminus had been a great servant to this country, only recently stepping into the void left by the assassination of Chichester Rhone, not for personal gain but to support the country that he loved. He was a valued friend and colleague and he would have wanted today's ceremony to continue in his honour. I would like to reassure the public, who I know will be greatly concerned by these events. As Minister of Securities I promise each and every one of you that this is the last day that chaos will reign in this fine country. Today we turn the page and begin a new chapter in our history, the greatest chapter and one that we will write together.'

The decrease volume button pressed itself into the television so hard that the cheap plastic cracked. High heels clicked down the stone steps in a familiar rhythm. That was all I needed.

'What is it with you and head injuries?' Vermina pushed open the unlocked door of my cell. Even she had a robe on.

'What is it with me and people punching me in the head?' I said.

'Who punched you?'

'Lola, except she does it on the inside,' I said. 'It hurts even more than when you do it.'

'I've already apologised for that, I really can't feel any worse about it. Have you had a tiff?'

'Entirely my fault.'

'I don't doubt it,' she sat on the cot next to me. 'I've been sent to guard you. Rowling's idea of a joke I think.'

'How's that working out for you?'

'I've been promoted. Black coded and special operations lead. I'm no longer the lowly bodyguard.'

'You don't sound very happy about it,' I said.

'No, I don't, do I? Even though it is a great improvement.'

Lola turned over so she was lying on her stomach, her fists under her chin as she looked at me. I figured there wouldn't be anything in Vermina's mind that mattered at this point. Not in the great scheme of things.

'She's paying for my silence about the storage place,' Vermina said.

Lola lay on her back again, whatever she'd been interested in she'd found.

'Why is she going to keep me?' I said.

Vermina went pale and pressed her lips together.

'Tell me, or she will,' I pointed to Lola. 'She just found out. I think I'd rather hear it from you at the moment.'

'She's going to make you the Guardian,' Vermina said. 'It was going to be Latch.'

'They brainwashed him, didn't they?' I remembered him lying in the hospital bed on the ship. The bruise.

'In a way, yes. Tourniquet will be given responsibility for guiding your thoughts so that you can protect him. It's horrible,' she spoke one word at a time pausing in between as though she had to force them out. 'I'm sorry.'

'It's not your fault. Anyway, it won't be me,' I said. 'Not really.'

'Sorcha, I saw Latch. He was in there, inside the shell they made. He was still there.'

I'd seen the look in his eyes too. She was right, he was in there and he was trying to get out. There was no way that was happening to me, no way at all. I would take death over that every time and if it turned out to be a battle where they had to try and keep me alive, well, I could only see that ending one way. I could feel Lola's interest at the edge of my mind but I shut myself away from her.

'There's something they won't show on the news,' Vermina was watching the monitor. 'There are thousands of boats on the river, hundreds of thousands of people down the road waiting to see what will happen, people from everywhere. There are soldiers too. I'm waiting to see what will happen. Then maybe I'll pick a side,' she smiled, despite everything. 'I know that you're keen I do.'

'Sounds like a plan,' I said.

'It'll be your side,' she said. 'Just so you know.'

Roach stopped pacing for a moment and in the silence I realised that his footsteps had been a constant beat like a metronome. 'She doesn't have a side,' he said. 'Not anymore.'

I gave Vermina a breezy smile and a nonchalant shrug.

We didn't have long to wait for the ceremony, the pictures on the television got more and more hysterical and the cameras began to move into the building. Three Galearii arrived with robes for us. Casino kept disappearing so they couldn't get his on without kneeling on his head. Roach and Lola put theirs on without a fuss. We were taken to join the throng of robes moving toward the great hall. I recognised a few faces and could almost put names to a few others but most of the robes cloaked grey featureless paper dolls. Lola kicked me in the ankle, she was behind me.

'Oh, I am sorry,' she said. 'I didn't see you there.'

'Can I ask you a question?' I said.

'No.'

'Just one, on the inside.'

I opened my mind. For a moment there was no sign of her then, as I guessed it would, curiosity got the better of her.

'How else did you think we were going to get into the ceremony?' I thought.

I stumbled and my knee hit the ground before Vermina pulled me to my feet. The force of Lola's surprise in my head had knocked me over.

'Are you all right?' Vermina said.

'Yes,' I said. 'I'm fine.'

'You're going to have to get a grip on that,' I thought. 'It hurts.'

'I don't understand,' she said in my head.

'I'm a little upset at how fast you all pegged me for a traitor.'

'How did you do that without telling a single lie?' she thought. 'That would have given you away, you're so bad at it.'

'We're playing the long con. And I'm good at that.'

I couldn't sense her anymore. Up ahead the broad queue of people was turning and then Roach, not paying attention to what was outside his head, almost fell on the dolls in front of him. Lola was talking to him, inside his head, and he turned and looked at me. Casino was next and he clapped his hands together twice in a gesture that earned him some strange looks. Then Lola was back, I could feel the echo of Casino too. He wanted to know about Tourniquet, it was like he was analogue lagging behind the digital signal.

'Casino wants to know about,'

'Tourniquet,' I finished for Lola. 'I don't know. Forget about him. He's on his own side.'

'Not their side?' Lola thought.

'No. At least I don't think so. We should assume he's out of the picture though.'

'How many sides are there? I've lost count,' Roach thought.

The four of us stopped in surprise and looked at each other. We could all think to each other, just as though we were talking.

'Please don't do anything stupid,' Vermina said to me. 'Please.'

We turned into the hall. It was hundreds of years old, panelled with dark wood and hung with the same tapestries as the armoury, except these ones showed healthy debate and cheerful negotiation not bloodthirsty war mongering. There must have been a thousand people in there, all seated neat and tidy in their pews. At the front of the hall on a raised platform were six ornate chairs, like modest thrones, one higher and more decorative than the others. There was something that looked like the altar from the pictures in Tourniquet's book. Behind everything a stained glass window took up most of the wall, an abstract composition appropriate for any occasion. The light that came through seemed murky as though it was diffracted through something. Water, I guessed.

'Sit here,' Vermina said, gesturing towards a space for four that made us as visible as Rowling had threatened.

I wondered what the thousands and thousands of people in their boats and beneath their banners would make of it. A good reason to riot, perhaps. I sat down and was joined by Lola, Casino and then Roach on the end. All around us the well to do and nothing to do were chattering and chuckling, well oiled with something expensive and intoxicating. I could still hear all the accents that we'd heard on Nexus. The ceremony, like Imagination Industries, was international.

'You have a plan, I assume,' Casino thought.

'Not yet,' I thought.

Vermina walked down the aisle towards the front of the hall. I watched her take her seat in the front row, she was talking on her communications unit as she sat down. The Galearii escort walked to the back. They'd left us, confident that we couldn't and wouldn't do anything. There were several cameras hovering around above our heads, beaming live feed out to the world. They rose and fell in sync, as though dancing to the hushed sounds they made as they flew.

'I'm not sure I like them,' the man in front of me said to his neighbour. He was watching a group of Galearii as they walked in perfect synchronisation to the back of the hall.

'No,' the neighbour said. 'Me neither.'

Both men were fat, well fed. The first one had pale, thin scars from a tuck running down behind his ears. His friend's nose was the aquiline model that was popular in the Ministry of Welfare. Both of them, like everyone but us, had an earpiece in. I guessed they would translate the parts of the ceremony they wouldn't be able to understand.

'Mind you, they are clearing the ghettos,' the one with the facelift said.

'Yes, I hear even the OP or whatever it's called lives in fear of them,' Nose Job said.

They both laughed.

'They're not all bad then,' Facelift said.

'Also, they seem pretty scared of this Father person, so I guess he'll keep them under control.'

'Well, this Tourniquet won't, that's for sure. He's more of a puffball than Terminus.'

'You can have them pliable or powerful,' Nose Job said. 'I'd rather have pliable.'

'I'd rather have Rhone back.'

'Well, hopefully those terrorists will get the ghetto treatment from our new friends.'

They laughed again. They were as brainwashed as Latch had been, as I was going to be.

'Keep an eye on them,' I thought. 'They might be useful.'

'Will do,' Lola thought.

Agent Tourniquet strode into the room, he was wearing a different robe of rich red and the medal of his new office hung around his neck. Rowling was behind him wearing a blue robe and she too had a medal, hers indicted that she was indeed the Minister of Securities. Her face was starting to fit now she had the power she wanted.

'Our friend here finds Rowling alluring,' Lola thought and nodded towards Nose Job. 'She has an authenticity lacking in many women. Apparently.'

'Well, they do say there is someone for everyone,' Casino thought.

'I'll never understand these people,' Roach thought.

Tourniquet and Rowling sat on the raised platform by the altar and were joined by the three Galearii minds. The sixth chair, the one for the Father, was still empty. The organ music started and everyone stood. The room was ringed with Galearii standing two deep and very close together, I estimated that there must have been about a five hundred of them.

'These two are really, really nervous about the Galearii, more nervous than they've admitted,' thought Lola. 'They've been reassured about them but they're not sure, not sure at all.'

So, the old man was anxious, the papers dolls were nervous, we were afraid. Only Rowling and Tourniquet seemed calm, they were smiling across the assembly. I watched the Galearii, they didn't seem to do emotion of any kind, never mind fear. That was fine by me, if they didn't feel it they wouldn't understand it.

'Where's Latch?' I thought. 'Can you tell?'

Lola disappeared from my head and my connection with Casino and Roach went with her. There was something sinister about the organ music, I shivered despite the intense heat of the room and the robe. There was an air of nervous anticipation in the hall, people fidgeted as they stood.

'I've found him,' Lola thought. 'It's amazing.'

'The closer we get the more powerful we get,' Roach thought. 'Remember.'

Casino leant forward catching my eye. He put his hand on Lola's and I watched as both of their hands disappeared. The music changed and two Galearii flanked the old man as he shuffled onto the platform, a third led the way. Everyone sat down. Lola rested her hands in her lap as though she was meditating and opened her mind out. We settled down like it was a summer meadow. Roach translated the ceremony as they were speaking, it was like watching a very well dubbed film as the events unfolded before us. After a while Lola pushed him into the background, like she was turning a radio down, confident that this was as dull as all the other ceremonies we'd heard about and if anything relevant came up he would push himself back in.

'Can you get Latch?' I thought.

There was a long pause then, 'He's coming.'

A camera buzzed up into the roof to get an aerial shot as another one moved towards us. It moved from Roach at a reasonable pace until it got to me where it pulled out and moved back to get all of us. I could imagine us on the big screen, a blue and red ticker beneath our faces identifying us as the terrorists Rowling had spoken of. I looked straight into the lens, my chin angled down, smiled a crooked kind of a smile and winked. The camera flew backwards turning to the platform, Casino allowed himself a chuckle. I wondered how that would play outside. I hoped they would realise we were up to something.

'How far?' I thought.

'Close,' Lola thought. 'He's in the corridor, I'm not sure which door it is.'

'It's the one with the wreathed cross on it,' Casino thought.

'Wait,' Roach thought.

Galen's translation surfaced, he was introducing Tourniquet with warm words. Tourniquet rose with all that presence and charm of his. He was perfect, made for it. Tourniquet and the old man looked like the best of the past and the promise of the future, all working together for the country, the world. Tourniquet started to talk, his theme was beginnings.

'He's here,' Lola thought.

'And now that time has arrived. Our time,' Tourniquet said. 'And with its arrival we...'

'Now,' I thought.

The great doors slammed opened and Latch lumbered in. It was unspeakable. His clothes had gone and his skin hung from him in red, wet tatters. That smell. It was like nothing I'd ever smelt before. No one knew what to do. Everything stopped. I could hear a woman retching and a man along the row from us vomited into his cupped hands.

'Let's go,' I thought.

I watched as Casino, Lola and Roach disappeared and then a hand I couldn't see touched mine. I held my hand up, I could see through it and then it was gone. Our vanishing upset the people in the pew behind us, they started up quite a kerfuffle, but their confusion was nothing compared to chaos at the front of the hall. Lola had dropped her connection with Latch and he was lurching around in front of the platform. They had seated all the high rollers up there and they scattered to get out of the way, Vermina slipped out of her row and looked back to find us. She pulled her gun when she didn't see us and the people around her ran for cover. She produced her Enforce card and held it up. It didn't seem to reassure anyone. Tourniquet was watching with interest, looking over Latch at the disturbance near us. Rowling was looking to the three Galearii minds for assistance but they were just standing there as though their thoughts were miles away. The Galearii around the room put their left hands inside the right sides of their jackets as one. I couldn't see the rest of the Vanguard but I knew where they were somehow.

'Wait,' said Galen in Roach's translation. 'Wait.'

'Make Latch go for the old man,' I thought. 'Like in one of those black and white films you hate.'

Latch turned, and lifted his arms out in front of him like Prophet sleepwalking. He groaned, and Lola took a sharp intake of breath.

'He's fighting me,' she said out loud, forgetting. She forced him onto the platform, towards the Father. The old man pushed himself into the back of his chair, bare feet and legs sticking out of the bottom of his gown.

'Get him away. Devil,' he was screaming. 'Devil.'

His chair rose onto its back legs and started to tip back, I let him down with great care, wary of his old bones. He crawled backwards away from Latch.

'Let him go,' I thought.

Latch fell to his knees, howling.

'They're really afraid now,' Lola thought. 'It's the old man, he's useless, and without him they think the Galearii are out of control.'

'Tell one of them that the Galearii did that to Latch,' I thought. 'Put the thought in his head.'

Facelift stood up. 'It was them,' his voice came in a gasp.

Everyone around wanted to know what he was talking about, they leant in to listen to him.

'It was them,' Facelift pointed at the three minds on stage. 'They did that to that poor man.'

'That's a man?' someone said.

Tourniquet was draped in his chair watching with great interest like he wasn't there, like he was outside watching it on the big screen. The four of us stood in the aisle with Vermina not far away, she was scanning the seats looking for us, for me. Then for a moment she was with us.

'You won't see us,' Lola thought. 'But we're here.'

Vermina fell to her knees, her hand to her head, to the hurt. 'Where?' she managed.

'What's wrong with her?' a woman pointed at Vermina as she managed to get to her feet.

'I'm getting out of here,' Nose Job pushed his way to the end of the row and walked towards me. I stuck out my foot tripped him over. Then they all started panicking, it was like watching a herd of sheep trying to escape a wolf. They were nothing more than cattle. I held the doors closed in my mind. No one was leaving. Not yet.

'See how people don't bump into us,' Casino thought. 'It's like they can sense we are here. Clever, isn't it?' He sounded like he was sharing his favourite toy.

'Everyone, please,' Rowling's voice rose above the heavy fretting. 'Wait a moment.'

There was such authority in her voice everyone stopped and turned towards her, even Lola almost dropped our connection. The only sound was the old man's high pitched whimpering and a deep, primal moaning from Latch that rumbled around the hall. The Galearii all moved their hands back to their sides. They'd been stood down for the moment.

'Help this man,' Rowling pointed at Latch and three Galearii came forward to do as she asked.

'Let him go,' I thought.

They stood Latch up, he staggered out with them. I let them open the door then slammed it as a few paper dolls tried to make a break for it.

'They're not here,' Gama said, through Roach.

'They can't sense us anymore,' Casino thought. 'We are stronger now, they're right.'

'Take the Father,' Rowling said. 'He's had a terrible shock.'

Three Galearii took him away, always three.

'We can let him go,' I thought. 'He's finished.'

Rowling looked unsure of what to do next, she looked at Galipolan.

A hush fell on the room. In one swift movement all the curled, golden knives I could find in my mind flew from the scabbards inside Galearii jackets. They rose into the air before the surprised angels could move. The crowd gazed up at them, managing to murmur their discontent despite the shock. Then they were tearing at the door handles, trying to get out.

'Please, let me explain,' Rowling said, raising her hands, watching hundreds of knives as they hovered. She turned to Tourniquet. 'Do something.'

'Me?' he said. 'Why me?

'What is happening?' Gama said.

'It's them,' Galen said.

'Nothing's happening, it's fine, a misunderstanding,' Rowling said in Galearian.

'It does not look that way,' Galen said.

'Perhaps they are not ready,' Galipolan said.

The stained glass window thought-shattered, a rainbow of glass flew into the hall and showered the assembly. The knives hovering in the air turned over, blades downwards. I thought-opened all the doors. The cattle watched and then there was a stampede.

'Walk, do not run, to the nearest exit,' Roach said out loud, causing everyone around him to wheel around searching for the voice, they fell over each other like skittles.

'Stop them,' Rowling shouted.

'Leave them,' Galen said. 'It's not time. You were wrong.'

'This was supposed to be the easy part,' Gama said.

'It stops now,' Galipolan said.

'No, it can't,' Rowling said. 'It's written.'

'Split up,' I thought. 'They'll see people parting around us.' I stood next to Rowling, as close as I could, to see what she could see, to see what plans laid with the utmost care looked like when they fell apart. She was shaking. She couldn't make things up as she went along. She was lost. Behind the altar, water was beginning to pour into the hall. It had stood in an obedient wall behind the shards of broken glass around the edge of the stone frame but it too was beginning to misbehave, little by little. The Galearii all looked to the three minds, waiting. I couldn't see Vermina anymore. The fleeing rich were shouting and fighting as they scrambled over each other to escape. It was everyone for themselves.

'What's happening?' Casino thought.

'I don't know,' Roach thought. 'They're communicating like we are.'

'How long can we stay like this, Casino?' Lola thought.

'As long as you want,' he thought. 'You can make yourselves visible whenever you like. Just focus on being seen.'

Rowling turned and looked straight through me to look at Agent Tourniquet. He was still sitting in his chair observing things.

'Say something,' Rowling said, I could feel her spittle on my cheek. I was surprised it was warm, somehow, surprised it was human.

'I hope they've turned the feed off,' Tourniquet pointed to the cameras hovering in the ceiling.

I brought one down and panned to Rowling's face. She reached into her robe and pulled out a gun and fired at the camera. It fell to the ground.

'No,' Gama said. 'The path has been changed.'

As one the Galearii turned and began to march towards the door at the back of the room. The paper dolls at the front had scattered at the gun shot and were running for different exits at the back, vaulting the pews. I thought-slammed the door at the back and the Galearii stopped. Tourniquet stood up and looked around with great focus. He made eye contact with me and smiled, only for the briefest moment, I couldn't be sure if he'd seen me or sensed me but he knew I was there, I was sure of that. I couldn't help but smile. Who was he?

Tourniquet said something in Galearian.

Roach's translation slipped for a moment. I could sense his surprise.

'What did he say?' thought Casino.

'He said "Galen, she has misled you, it is not time." His accent is really, really good,' Roach thought.

Galen thought for a moment and then replied.

'There's no translation for that,' Roach thought. 'It was idiom. Something about the Vanguard, I think.'

Casino thought a long whistle and I thought of Minos.

'No,' Rowling said under her breath. 'Not like this again.'

I smashed two cameras into each other, debris rained down on the people still trying to get out of the doors. A few bodies lay on the ground, knocked out as the herd surged. The Galearii turned to another open door and marched. They moved at speed and with great efficiency. Dolls scrambled out of their way. They were headed the opposite direction to the people but without Minos's map I couldn't tell where everyone would end up. I took hold of Rowling's chain of office with my mind and pulled on the links a little, testing. She stumbled forward. And then I let go.

Tourniquet looked around, a question on his face.

'That's not me,' I whispered in his ear.

He smiled. 'I know. It wasn't your fault. None of it.' He stepped off the stage and with three strides was lost in the paper dolls crowded around a door.

'I don't get him,' Casino thought. 'What just happened?'

'I don't think he's who anyone thinks he is,' I thought.

'Look out,' Lola thought.

The three minds were moving towards me, but it was Rowling they were after.

'Make sure the people get out,' I thought. The hall was almost empty. 'Help them.'

'You're sure?' thought Casino.

'What if they say something important?' Roach thought.

'We've changed enough,' I thought. 'The path, I think we're done.'

'Let's go,' Lola thought. 'We'll see you in the bell tower. We're not leaving anyone behind.'

For the first time, I think, we believed we'd get out of there.

Rowling was talking in Galearian and I didn't need Roach to tell me that she was negotiating. When she started begging in earnest she slipped into English. Without the aura of power that surrounded her she looked like all she was, an old woman. Frail, vulnerable. I almost felt sorry for her.

'Please. I can put this right. It's a setback but that's all. The data says that the majority of them support you and will even vote for you when the time comes. I know people. Other people. People you don't know. I could introduce you.'

Galen said something to Gama.

'I'll set up a meeting,' she said. 'Wait and see.'

Gama stepped forward. I realised the room was empty but for the five of us. Rowling held her hands in front of her mouth and nose, as though that would save her. 'No,' she said. 'Please.'

Her voice broke as she said please again. She coughed, clearing her throat only to find her mouth full of water, then some more water and then it started to pour out of her. The gun fell out of her hand on to the chair next to her. I jumped off the platform onto the floor. The water was rising, soon it would reach my ankles. Rowling fought her losing battle with the tide that rose inside her. I watched until she lay still on the wet floor, yet more water pouring around her, nudging at her corpse as if making sure she was dead. The three minds started to walk away, after their troops. The knives were still hanging in the air where I'd left them. I thought-dropped them onto the floor, handle first and harmless. The three minds turned to see what had happened and I thought how fortunate it was that I was invisible because if I could be seen I would be in trouble. I looked at my hands as they faded into view.

'Well, that doesn't take much focus,' I said.

Rowling's gun flew into my hand. The three minds came towards me, the way they moved was mesmerising.

'It is you,' Galen said.

'You speak English,' I checked to see if Rowling's gun was loaded. It was.

'We do not like violence,' Galen raised its hand. 'It is pointless.'

'Is that an apology?' I said.

'Enough,' it said.

'She said you were with us,' Gama said.

'She said a lot of things,' I said. 'All she did was talk, did you ever notice that?'

'Tell me something,' Gama said. 'You have no interest in power. Why not?'

'We don't understand,' Galipolan said. 'We don't understand you.'

'We usually understand everything.' Galen said. 'This is interesting to us.'

'We live in interesting times,' I said.

'You will not live in them for much longer,' Galen said. 'We still want you. You will be with us.'

'No, she won't,' Vermina said. She had a gun in each hand, one trained on Galen, one on Gama. I pointed mine at Galipolan. 'She's with me.'

There was a long pause. I guessed that the minds were communing.

'She is the True Guardian,' Galipolan said. 'She is not yours.'

'Yes,' Vermina said. 'She is.'

I heard myself scream, it was a high, thin sound and for a moment I thought of Nexus, of the candles and the choir. I saw myself fall to the ground, then felt the cold water against my forehead. I was inside myself and outside myself at the same time. It was worse than Lola, much worse. The pain was heavy and dark. It had sharp edges and gave off a piercing heat. I waited to black out but it never came. I realised it would be endless. A gun went off, three, four times, the sound distorted and ragged. My vision had gone, spinning into a kaleidoscope of grey and blue.

'No,' I said and for a moment everything stopped, no noise, no movement, nothing. Even the pain stopped. I felt the gun in my hand. I was holding it up out of the water. I remembered what Prophet had said, he said there is this time and then there is another time.

Vermina shouted something. I couldn't make sense of it.

I raised my head, lifted the gun to my temple, and pulled the trigger.

I was lying, my head in Vermina's lap. She looked pale beyond white. The three minds backed away. One of them was shot, I thought it odd that its wound wept blood. I felt Vermina's fingers on my wrist, feeling for a pulse.

'Hold on,' she said, knowing that it was too late. 'Please hold on.'

The water submerged my body as I lay on the floor and carried on rising, I felt myself beginning to float. I listened to Vermina's grief until I couldn't bear it any longer. I stood up, walked away and thought-rang every drop of water from my clothes and my hair instead of looking back.

Minos was sitting on the bench in the bell tower, staring at his hands as he clenched and unclenched his fists. Everywhere else was deserted, there was no one anywhere. There was just me and Minos.

'Fuck,' he said. It could have meant anything.

'We died,' I said.

'I know. I worked that much out. Latch got me. I remember it all. I thought he was going to kill all of us. He was so strong. Like there was more than just him, but that makes no sense. Funny I always thought he'd be the one. He hated me. Hated me. Remember that time at Zombie Palace, he broke three of my ribs, for not much of a reason. I'm babbling, aren't I? Wait. Wait. You're dead?'

'Yes.'

'How?'

I put my fingers to my temple, there was no wound. 'I shot myself.'

'You shot yourself?'

'Otherwise we would have lost,' I said. 'And it would have been for nothing. You would have been for nothing.'

'I'm sorry I couldn't be more help,' his eyes filled with tears.

'But you were. You made Latch into a monster everyone could recognise. The other ones were too well disguised.'

I'd only ever seen him cry once before. He thought he'd lost his mother in the flood but she came to find him. He was twenty. They met up a few times and it seemed to be going well. They warned us that it could be difficult being reunited, that we shouldn't expect our parents to live up to our fantasies, but she was everything he'd wished for. Then he told her what he did to make ends meet and she turned him in. I sold everything we had to pay his bail and he sat on the steps of the Enforce station and cried like a small boy for ten minutes. Then he wiped his eyes, blew his nose and we never mentioned it again.

'What's it like being dead?' I said after a while.

'Boring,' he said.

'Good job I came to get you then,' I said.

'I'm very pleased to see you.'

'I couldn't leave you here,' I said. 'You're like the big brother I never wanted.'

I took him back to the great hall through the silence and the loneliness. Somehow Vermina was still sitting with my body, the water up to her waist, trying to keep my head above the water even though I couldn't drown. Minos hung back at a respectful distance and looked for his feet as they shuffled around underwater. I knelt down in front of Vermina and pushed all the water away from us in an ever-increasing circle. Everything went with it, there was only us. No hall, no water, no Minos. She caught a sob in her throat and looked at me, at the real me. She said my name and noticed my body had slipped out of her grasp. I needed a kick, an impetus to get everything to move for me. There was nothing there but Vermina. She was the only thing living in the whole world.

What was it Étienne had done, when I was half a breath away from being awake?

Vermina touched my face and I could feel amazement in her fingertips. I kissed her. I kissed her like I'd wanted to every day since I closed that door on her and her licences that in the end meant nothing. The world span in two directions at once, like a ball on a roulette wheel, it span away from me and towards me. When it stopped I could hear the people outside, I could hear boat horns and drums and chanting.

'We're back,' Minos said. Everything was back.

Vermina was feeling about under the water. She got to her feet. 'I don't understand, where have you gone?'

But she wasn't talking to me. She couldn't see me. She was looking for me under the water.

I hadn't expected that.

'Come on,' Minos ran a few steps then tripped and fell into the water. He was right, he was back. Dirty water poured off his grinning face. Whatever had happened, he hadn't been there to see it.

Vermina wasn't the only Enforce officer that picked a side that day. The whole company resigned as one when it became clear how many hundreds of thousands of people they would have to somehow arrest. It could have been fear of the huge amount of paperwork they'd have to do that tipped the balance in our favour. We found the others in the bell tower, still waiting on the steps a couple of flights before the room where they'd laid out Minos. The body wasn't there anymore and I wondered where our corpses had gone. Minos made Casino tell him what had happened in the hall about five times, the others chipping in when their excitement got too much for them. They kept staring at Minos as if making sure he was real, Roach squeezed Minos's stringy biceps about a hundred times to confirm his solidity. I made him promise not to say anything about my own adventure. Not yet. We climbed up to the top of the bell tower to see if we could get a better view of events outside. We found a hole in the clock face and managed to get outside and sit on the hands of the ancient clock, high up with the brown gargoyles and fussy spires that covered the ancient building. Roach and I sat on the hour hand, the others on the minute hand.

'You're quiet,' Roach said. 'You all right?'

'Yeah, I'm all right,' I said. I had told them I banged my head and didn't know what had happened. It was almost the truth.

'No headaches, no unpleasant side effects?'

'I don't think so.'

My heart hurt.

'You are a terrible, terrible liar,' Roach said. 'If you were any good you'd be dangerous. More dangerous.'

'I don't feel dangerous. I...' I what?

'It's OK,' he looked out over the crowds that had gathered. 'Whenever you're ready.'

We could see miles across the city to the north. The water was a mass of boats and rafts, all the gondolas had turned out laden with people. The streets beyond the water were full of people too, they were all chanting and waving homemade banners and whenever one of the giant screens that had been set up by officials but long since hijacked showed Rowling or one of the Galearii a huge booing and hissing started. It was a coup but it felt like a carnival. Marshall was on heavy rotation on the news reels, he was managing to get interviews with some key people.

'Funny that,' Casino grinned. 'It's almost like he's got some inside information.'

'Pillow talk,' Minos snorted.

'Shut up,' Lola said. 'Look.'

The screen was so big that even from high up it was crystal clear, it was showing the Detention Centre. Stark was standing on the steps flanked by two people.

'That's Rathbone and Sanchez Zah,' Lola said. 'They're Stark's best friends.'

We couldn't hear the sound so Minos pulled out his tablet.

'It's not working,' he said, water poured out of one corner.

I thought about the inside of the tablet and all the little chips inside and how dry they were and more water poured out of the sides. After a moment it lit up.

'That's awesome,' Minos said. 'You know that?' He found Marshall's news channel and a sentence scrolled across the screen announcing that Stark would be forming an interim government. Minos nudged Lola so hard she almost fell off our perch.

I wondered why Vermina couldn't see me.

The sentence that scrolled after Stark's caught my eye. 'Hunt on for Vanguard,' I read.

'Hunt?' Minos said. 'We're not hiding.'

'Heroes disappear in chaos at parliament building,' I read on.

'Why are they putting Stark in charge?' Lola said, still a step behind in her relief at his release.

'Tourniquet,' Minos said, absorbing the news as he checked his source feed. 'He says the people from the Arts Academy have always been the voice of caution and reason and that Stark is the best choice.'

'And because they've been in the Detention Centre people won't link them with the old government or Imagination Industries, I bet,' I said.

'Well, Stark's hatred for Imagination Industries knows no bounds,' Lola said.

There was flash of light in the gathering dusk, followed by a boom over to the north east. A half-hearted mushroom cloud rose into the sky. The crowd cheered.

'That was the Entertainment Centre,' Minos said. 'I bet you.'

'I wonder what will happen now,' I said.

'First things first. They'll blow some more stuff up,' Minos said.

There was a sudden commotion from the roof down to our left as a gang of a dozen or so people clambered through a skylight and one of them let some bottles slide out of his grip and down the slope. The bottles teetered on the guttering before falling to the ground below. The revellers struggled for a moment with the camber of the roof and their own slippery wetness before managing to unfurl a huge cloth banner. It had a huge letter 'V' in a circle on it. It was blue and red. The throng below began to respond and more blue and red signs appeared. The gang on the roof started hooting and howling.

'Hey,' Casino couldn't bear the lack of attention any longer. 'Over here.'

They didn't respond. They just carried on holding up their drinks to the crowd below in a vast, communal toast.

'Hey,' Casino said, then looked at his hands. 'Am I visible? I feel visible.'

I had a bad feeling.

'Yes,' Roach said. 'We all are, aren't we?'

Minos pulled an apple out of his bag, it was so shiny it could only have come from Haggia. He tossed it down onto the roof hitting one of the revellers. She looked up, rubbing her shoulder, stared right at us and saw nothing. Lola was in and out of my mind before I could stop her.

'Let's get out of here,' was all she said.

We didn't need to go all back the way we had come, we could just make our way out the front door. The water was still rising, as we waded through the drowning grandeur it was up to my thighs. All kinds of waste floated by, rotten and stinking. Minos led us through the maze of rooms where we'd found the old man, back when Minos was dead, and as we climbed up the narrow staircases we left the water behind. I thought-dried us all and we walked on.

'Catch us up,' Lola said.

'Straight on and when you can't do that go left,' Minos said.

I didn't understand at first, I was lagging behind the others trying to think. They disappeared around a corner. I passed a deep alcove and sitting inside on a wooden bench with a long tapestry bolster was Vermina. She was shivering and wet, but wrapped in a thick, dry robe. As I sat next to her I could hear her teeth chattering. I thought of all the things I could have said, but she wouldn't have heard any of them. Her communications unit gave a long beep signalling an external call coming through. She ignored it until it rang through a third time, then she felt for it in her pockets.

'Hello.'

I could hear the voice on the other end of the line, it was Stark. He was making an offer.

'I'm not sure,' she said.

'Well, your name has been put forward and I think you would be a valuable addition to the team. If you want to be,' Stark said.

'Who put it forward?'

'Me,' Stark said. 'And Agent Tourniquet.'

'I'm not sure.'

'It will be new,' Stark said. 'Not like Securities and certainly not like Enforce, it will be a public body again.'

She said nothing.

'Think about it,' he said. 'Please. Where are you?'

'At the House, something's happened.'

There was silence on the other end of the line then, 'Is it true?' Stark said. 'It was them?'

'Yes,' her voice was softer than a whisper. 'Something's gone wrong.'

'I'm sending someone, stay there.'

I waited until they arrived, it was only five minutes or so. Two women, armed but not visibly so ,with faces quick to show concern took her away. I joined the others outside and watched the boat speed back out with its green light flashing.

'Does Stark still know Vermina?' I said. 'I mean, have they seen each other recently?'

'No, I don't think so,' Lola said. 'I didn't know they knew each other at all. Why?'

'He just offered her a job.'

'She take it?' Minos said.

'Not yet,' I said. 'She will.'

'This is unbelievable,' Casino said as a man protected by a cloud of homebrew fumes stumbled into him. 'This isn't how it usually goes. Maybe because I made you all invisible something's gone wrong and we just need to wait for it to right itself.'

'Don't tell him,' Lola thought to me. 'Don't tell any of them until you're sure.'

It was slow going back to the hotel, we jumped from boat to boat in the flotilla until we made dry land and then tried to commandeer a selfdrive in the hope that people would think that it was still functioning on its own. There weren't any around. We couldn't take a car because we didn't want people to see a car driving itself down the road. Not because we thought we'd scare them, but because we couldn't work out how we'd cope when the inevitable happened and some joker thought they'd climb aboard and roll us over.

'At least no one can see what I look like,' Casino said, he pulled at his filthy top.

'My trousers are chaffing,' Minos said, still cheerful. 'But hey, at least I'm not dead. Right? I am right?'

'I smell,' Casino said. 'Of sewage.'

We couldn't find a quiet way to walk home, everyone was in the streets partying. A handful of people were still blowing things up but Stark had pleaded for calm and managed to put everyone in the mood for a jovial celebration. He may have been a reluctant leader but he was a natural. The city felt more peaceful than I'd ever known it, the everyday malevolence suspended. A woman came running out of a doorway and smacked into Lola so hard she went flying into the road, knocking down part of a conga line.

'Can you not do something about this?' she said to me.

We found a table in a looted shop, old habits were perhaps hard to break after all. It turned itself upside down and we all squeezed onto it. I thought-lifted it into the air, as we rose over the crowd Casino snatched a Vanguard banner from the hands of a boy of about twelve.

'Look, look,' the boy pointed and the crowd around him watched the banner rise over the street, somehow caught on a floating table. The wind caught the flag like a sail and we drifted home, people below looking up in wonder for a moment and then getting back to drinking to today and dreaming about tomorrow. It was just another magical thing happening on a magical day to them.

# Chapter Eighteen

The hotel looked as boarded up as usual when I brought us to earth in the middle of the road, but Lola was able to push the door open with one finger. The hotel was full of people. On the positive side, it was full of people we knew, but still.

Roach groaned. 'Not a party, not now.'

'How did they get in?' Lola said.

'I might have given Marshall the code to the back,' Casino said.

'I need a drink,' Minos said.

'You can't have one,' Lola said. 'They'll see.'

'They'll see, freak out and go home,' Minos said. 'Perfect.'

'Let's go to my room,' Casino said. 'I've got plenty of booze.'

By the reception desk a group of people were posing with life sized cardboard cut-outs of the five of us. I couldn't watch, it was only a matter of time before the whole thing descended into some kind of dry humping embarrassment. We picked our way up the staircase, through the crowd of friends and their shouted conversations. I lingered by the door to the ballroom, where I'd stood talking to Loop about getting high and to Marshall about smuggling rum. It didn't seem like a different lifetime ago, it seemed like a whole different world. Tex and Elijah stood talking instead.

'So, when Prophet tells the Sorcha character about the Cortex Corporation he's actually talking about Imagination Industries?' Elijah said.

'Yeah, but we couldn't use their real name either because they'd, you know...'

'Arrest you?' Elijah said.

'Kill us,' Tex said.

'Is that why you didn't use Sorcha's name?'

'You know what? I didn't even know,' Tex said. 'Didn't even know it was them.'

'That's pretty deep,' Elijah swigged on a bottle of vodka. 'And to think she gave me the licences for that party I had, when all the time it was her, she was her, if you see what I mean. She never said a word and I didn't realise.'

'Yeah, no one realised,' Tex rubbed the back of his head where his hair was already wearing out. 'That's the weirdest thing. No one knew. I had no idea.'

'No one knew,' Elijah said. 'Amazing.'

'Well, except Marshall,' Tex said. 'He knew.'

'Can I meet him?'

'Sure he's here somewhere,' Tex led him down to the saloon bar and I followed in their wake. There was Marshall standing with a bottle of rum in one hand and a tiny plastic Casino in the other, I couldn't get near him for the crowd gathered around him, hanging on his every word. Given the channel he was on, it could have been the biggest audience he'd ever had. I bumped into Roach, cannoning off him into a drunk Loki. It was like pinball in the hallway, people milling around and frustrating the people trying to get somewhere. Loki was trying to comfort Clara, who was wailing about Minos not being the man she thought she was. She thought he was an honest, simple fellow, when in fact he was harbouring a huge secret. If he lied about that, she sobbed, what else had he lied about?

'Yeah,' Loki said. 'He wasn't the man you thought he was. He was, like, much better. Way better. And, don't get me wrong, I really loved the original Minos.'

Clara wailed even louder.

'They're remembering when we went to the OP,' Roach pointed at someone I sort of recognised but couldn't have named. 'They're saying it was where the Vanguard first battled the Galearii. I have a horrible feeling that all these people are insane. All of them.'

'I have a worse feeling that we are,' I said.

'Yeah, yeah, we go way back,' Starboy said as he walked by. 'Way back, I knew Minos and Sorcha from the children's home. Even then you knew they were different, do you know what I mean? I mean he was really odd and she was, well, she was...'

'Come on,' I pulled Roach away before Starboy found the word he was looking for, I didn't need to hear what I was.

We found ourselves swept along in a group that had decided to move into the ballroom. I'd end up where I'd started but it was the path of least resistance. Roach shrugged as he was buffeted along and tried a grin that froze on his lips. I wondered how we'd accumulated so many acquaintances, done so much business. Haggia was sitting on a beer keg just inside the door, near where the DJ had set up, she'd found a little space so we went and stood near her. She was talking to Crump from the dock.

'I think they'll come back,' Crump said.

'Maybe they will,' Haggia said. 'Maybe they haven't gone anywhere.'

'Maybe. Casino could have made them all invisible and they could be here right now.'

'You're half right,' I said.

Roach looked thoughtful for a moment but didn't comment. When I was ready he'd said and he would wait.

'Maybe,' Haggia said. 'I'm keeping the hotel for them, just in case. All their rooms are shut up and safe.'

'We could make it into a museum,' Crump said.

'He's big on relics,' Roach said. 'He likes the really old ships.'

'Yes,' Haggia said. 'What a great idea. I like it.'

'She likes that because it'll make her some cash,' I smiled.

'How do you know them?' Crump said.

'Oh, I used to sell them vegetables,' Haggia said. 'And wisdom.'

I noticed the DJ then. It was Qool DJ Qronos. He had left Queens and his perpetual set to play at the hotel. Roach's mouth fell open but despite all the languages he knew he couldn't articulate his amazement.

Someone was shouting for Loop, really shouting. It was Massey, his voice carried up the stairs with him not far behind it. Loop crowd surfed his way out of the ballroom to the top of the stairs, trust him to know that was the quickest way to move around. We struggled behind him.

'The game,' Massey said. 'It's gone.'

'What do you mean?' Loop said.

'It's gone.'

'Gone?' Loop said.

'I don't know how else to put it. It's gone. I rebooted the system, because it shut down for some reason I can't work out and people were moaning and freaking out on me. And it's not there. The whole game has gone. I need it fixed. I've got a massive queue outside my place. It's chaos. Where's Sorcha, or Minos?' Massey looked beyond harassed.

'Haven't you heard?' Loop said. 'Hey everyone, he hasn't heard.'

I have never seen anything like what happened then. The place went crazy, people were bouncing off the walls, off each other. Qronos played it loud and hard and his bass was so fierce it cracked the plaster on the walls. And it went on and on and on. It was the presence of hope that made it so strange, the air was thick with the belief that for once, maybe just this once, there existed the slim possibility that everything was going to be all right. There was no place for our weary cynicism, born of confusion and a simmering resentment. Haggia was right, our rooms were still shut off and we all opted for a change of clothes. For some reason it was the sight of my empty bike stand hanging from the ceiling that, after everything, made me cry. Or maybe it wasn't that at all.

We reconvened in Casino's rooms almost at the top of the hotel. It was a little quieter up there but not by much. We sat around thinking our own thoughts, watching Roach mix cocktails that were more cheerful and jaunty than we were. I drank and drank until I lost myself in sleep, I could hear the others talking about Marshall as I drifted off.

All the optics and bottles were full, like the bar had just opened. The ice was melting into my drink and drops of water ran down the outside of the glass and onto the small circle of linen the barman had placed it on. There was a glass next to mine, with no drink in it just an olive, as though someone else had just left us.

'I thought that was your usual,' Étienne crossed her left leg over her right knee, brushing my own knee on the way.

'It is,' I said.

'Do you want something else?'

'No, this is fine.'

'If I have another will you think badly of me?'

'Of course not.'

'Let's go upstairs,' she said. 'I'll get room service.'

I'd been there before. I watched the almost familiar red numbers flicker through the floors until we arrived at the top. The penthouse suite with the amazing view. This time there were fireworks. I'd never seen so many. It seemed as though every street corner laid out in the neat pattern that spread for miles before us was sending up rockets and shells in every colour imaginable.

'Where am I?' I said.

'You know where you are, you've been here before,' she smiled.

'No, I mean the me in Casino's room, where is she?' I sat on the stool at the baby grand piano in front of the window. 'Because I'm there and I'm not there. No one can see us. '

'You are becoming more not there,' Étienne said. 'With every moment that passes you are less there and more here.'

'And the others?'

'Yes, them too. All of the... what do they call you?'

'The Vanguard.'

'Vanguard,' she enjoyed the word.

There were lilies in a large glass vase on top of the piano. They had dropped orange pollen on the shiny black wood.

'And where is here?' I said after a long pause. I looked at the clock. 'That clock doesn't move.'

'It is moving,' Étienne said. 'Just very, very slowly now. It will get faster.'

I sighed but blew the pollen away with my mind. At least that worked here.

'What about Vermina?' I said.

'Ah,' Étienne said. 'Vermina.'

I looked at her. She looked a little sad. There was a knock at the door. Étienne opened it without moving and a man dressed in a very smart uniform ruined by a ridiculous pill box hat pushed a trolley into the room. More champagne. Two glasses. He'd brought my drink from the bar too.

'May I?' he said to Étienne.

'Yes, please,' she said.

He eased the cork out of the bottle and poured two glasses. He never took his eyes from Étienne. She thanked him and with an incline of his head he stepped backwards through the door and it closed without a sound.

'Vermina is fine,' Étienne said, handing me my glass.

'And?'

'Stark will look after her,' Étienne said. 'He will be unable to find Lola and Vermina will tell him a little of what happened. As much as she knows. And they will become...'

'Close?'

'No. More simpatico,' Étienne said. 'I think Vermina is done with the more romantic side of her life, even more so than before. Stark not so much, but it will take him a long time to stop seeing Lola in every woman he meets.'

'That's sad.'

'It would be sadder if he just forgot about her, don't you think?'

'I guess so,' I said. She was right, but it was still the choice between nothing more than two types of sadness. I didn't think that was any choice at all. 'Where will they think she's gone? Where will they think all of us have gone?'

'They will assume that you made the ultimate sacrifice. Because that's the story Marshall and Haggia will tell everyone,' Étienne said. 'Because that's what they'll be told to do.'

'I'm starting to think we have,' I drained the glass.

'You made a choice, that's all.'

'And now everyone else has to live with it?'

'Given the circumstances I'm not sure what else you could have done. Not many people presented with the ability to choose an alternate life over death would have chosen death. Particularly if it wasn't only for them, but for their family too.' She sat in an armchair.

The fireworks had stopped but the lights of the city were as spectacular, just in a different way. The minute hand on the clock moved. I decided I loved the old clocks, they were so much more evocative that the churning of digital figures.

'An alternate life?' I said, testing the phrase out. 'Like in a parallel universe?'

'Kind of.'

'Kind of?'

'Well, parallel lines run alongside each other, never crossing, never getting closer. Just two lines disappearing off into the distances like the rails on a train track. But alternate realities are more like a network, like a spider's web.'

'So you can move between them?'

'Everyone does, from moment to moment, they just don't know it. You make a decision, you move paths and the other decision you almost made carries on without you. Some threads will take you right to the end of the web and some will take you around forever. But people can't choose which thread they take, only a course of action. The reality of it remains hidden, otherwise people couldn't cope with the truth of it. Although it's so sensible really, I wonder how other people think anything else could possibly happen. '

'But you can choose to move between them however you like, can't you?'

'Yes,' she smiled. 'And so, it seems can you.'

'Didn't you know that?'

She laughed. 'No. I don't know everything. That would be boring. I told you that it wasn't any fun anymore.'

'How did I move between?' I said. 'I don't understand.'

'You bent the web and folded yourself into another part of the web. Like quantum origami if you like.'

'And that's here?'

'This is just a waiting room, in a way, not subject to the same rules as other places. These stalled places are always hotels. Funny that, isn't it? You've been somewhere else out of your own time.'

'Have I?'

'The hospital.'

'The hospital?' The facility that didn't make sense. Of course, it didn't make sense. We weren't there, then we were, then we weren't. What made sense about that?

Étienne was nodding as though it made perfect sense. 'You needed some help from another world, so I gave you it. It was quite simple. This time you moved yourself, but not all the way. You didn't quite make your origami creases clean enough and now an impression of you needs to fade from your world before you can appear properly in the other. It shouldn't take too long now. Going to sleep was a smart move because it loosens your hold on a specific reality. You dream and remember that it's all so...'

'So what?' I said.

'Tenuous,' she smoothed the leather on the arms of the chair with her hands, deep in thought. 'When you have faded from that world you will arrive in the next and it will look familiar to you, like this world, here and now, but it will be different.'

'How?'

The minute hand on the clock moved again. It was almost three in the morning.

'Wait,' Étienne said. 'You'll see. It doesn't fit into words. Not your words anyway. Roach could understand.'

'How come I can't?'

'Because that isn't your purpose, it's his,' she smiled. 'Is the ability to move the earth not enough for you?'

I didn't know if I'd ever get used to having a purpose, I'd been so long without one.

The city beyond the window wasn't like my old city in my old reality. It was far bigger, more organised. There were two brighter, broader roads running from the top to the bottom of the city, and from one side to the other. A gathering of towers stood out towards the horizon where the early light of dawn was starting to show itself in the purple sky. There were no stars. The towers were too far away for me to make out what the bright logos on the top of the buildings were. I hoped they didn't say Imagination Industries.

'What happens next?' I said. 'In my world.'

'Time,' Étienne said. 'Think of it being more like a time than a place. A moment.'

I sat on the sofa opposite her. 'What happens?'

'The government that Stark and his technocrats form fulfills its duty and brings in a new government in six months time, which as far as it can, gets the country back to order. There is enough food and fuel for everyone without the need for civil war. People feel engaged with the new system and the country begins to provide a leading example for the rest of the world.'

I found that unlikely, of course.

Étienne smiled at my thoughts. 'You might be interested to know that the people decide to destroy every historical building in the city and build new structures with the reclaimed material, using the old the foundations. They don't teach history in the schools that spring up. Our feet point forward becomes a popular slogan. I can't remember the exact words, something like that.'

'I guess there's an alternate reality where Stark's plan doesn't work out?'

'Yes, a few,' Étienne said. 'In one the interim cabinet decides to allow people to put themselves forward for leadership. And, of course, anyone who thinks they should be a leader, or a minister, is by virtue of that belief unsuitable so that whole thing is doomed from the start. It's one of the fundamental flaws but you can't seem to get it out of your systems.'

My head hurt from thinking and some part of me wanted to shout at her to stop, that it was too much to take in but somehow everything she said made complete sense to me. Like she was confirming things I always knew, that I'd already seen.

'You are a good example,' she said. 'You are the leader of the Vanguard, according to the material created by Marshall and his army of helpers. This is not disputed by the others because it is true.'

'It isn't.'

'You're just proving my point. Sometimes Casino wishes that he were the leader but it is this wish, this desire for people to follow him, that makes him the worst possibility of all of you.'

'Roach would be better,' I said.

'Yes. But not better than you, because you have no interested in being followed. Of course, if you had stayed in that same reality and people discovered that you were actually real, instead just of hoped for real, they would have made the Vanguard lead, you would have had no choice in the matter. And you just wouldn't have been able to live up to those expectations. It would have been a nightmare. The whole thing is a minefield, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to keep under control.'

'Can we go back ever?'

'No. In a way Stark and Vermina are right. You have all made the ultimate sacrifice. Well, maybe not the ultimate, I think that depends on your point of view, but sacrifices certainly.'

'Like?'

She ran her finger around the rim of her glass and thought for a moment. 'Lola has given up Stark, he was the one.'

'The one?' There was a one. Another thing I already knew.

'Yes. That was their chance. Their time. The space where they found what they were looking for, in each other. But they have missed their connection. It will never be repeated. The same is true of Marshall although not in quite the same way. Casino would have taught him something he needed to know. Without that knowledge about himself he won't ever become what he could have.'

I thought of Vermina. Maybe in another lifetime, she'd said. Maybe not. I didn't want to hear about the others and the things I had made them give up. They deserved better.

'What happens in the future in our time? Our original time? The one we didn't change.' I said.

'It doesn't exist anymore. You broke the rules so the game stopped. That thread has gone and it never existed.'

'But if we hadn't, what would have happened? If we'd made a different decision at some point things would have turned out differently, right? How did they turn out? What if we hadn't gone to the house, what if we had gone to Riverside Sector and cleared out that deposit house.'

'You don't want to know,' she said.

'But you can show me?'

'No,' she said.

I thought it was the first time she'd ever lied to me. Sometimes I couldn't see the truth in what she was saying or she left things out, but that was an outright lie. I realised she was as bad at lying as I was supposed to be. She looked away and then bit her bottom lip, so fast it could be missed, but then her voice spoke the lie and it sounded wrong, like someone else's voice. She knew I knew it.

'Couldn't you have stopped it?' I let it pass.

'No. I can't break the rules like you. I can only move the pieces around.'

'Why can't you break them?'

'I helped to make them.'

'I need to know what would have happened,' I said. 'Otherwise I'll think I could have done something differently.'

'You couldn't.'

'I can't believe you.'

'You have to. It's done,' she smiled and held out her hand. 'Come with me.'

I took her hand and the world reared up like an angry horse. I was lying on the rug in her library, in the house in the Cathedral Quarter. I thought we were going to see something else, she'd tricked me. I got to my feet and staggered over to look out of the small window, just so I could hang on to the windowsill for a moment without looking like I needed the support.

'It's so dark,' I said, it was darker than I'd ever seen it.

'There's nothing out there. It's gone, there's only this room,' she opened the door. There was, as she said, nothing out there. It wasn't dark, it was less than that, it wasn't anything at all.

'You can shut that,' I thought I might vomit.

'Yes, there's a terrible draught,' said a familiar voice.

'There you are,' Étienne said. 'I didn't know if you'd come.'

'I didn't know if she'd want me to,' he nodded towards me.

'Don't mind me,' I said.

'I thought you'd blown it there for a minute,' Tourniquet said. 'I really did.'

I put two fingers to my head like a gun and made the sound of small explosion, 'I did blow it, in a way.'

'Funny,' he grinned. 'You're funny sometimes. And very unpredictable. I like that.'

'You could explain,' I said to Étienne. 'Just leap in, anytime.'

'We're related,' Tourniquet said.

'We aren't,' Étienne said. 'We're relative.'

I looked at them, to compare them. I looked at her red hair, his dark hair. She had green eyes, his were brown. They were both tall but he was athletic and she was slight. Then I remembered that she only looked like that for me.

'What do you look like really?' I said to Tourniquet.

'She is good, isn't she?' he said to Étienne. 'Very quick to catch on.'

'Show her,' she said.

He changed in an instant. There was no hideous transition, no crunching of bones or agonised shrieking. One moment he was the old Tourniquet, my Tourniquet, and the next a smaller, much younger person was sitting on the chair. Her hair was blonde with just the slightest hint of red.

'That's what you look like as well, isn't it?' I turned to speak to Étienne but she'd already changed. There were two of them. 'I preferred you before.' There was something about them that made me think of death, as though death were a person.

'We know,' she said.

'Don't get angry with me,' Tourniquet said. 'I tried to fix everything for you. I told Stark that Vermina would be a good addition to his team. That took some persuading. I don't know what that man had against me.'

'How is that fixing everything?' I slouched in a green leather armchair, their fascination was wearing off, wearing me out.

'It's a start,' he said.

'It's not even close,' I said.

'Well, it's more than you're going to get from her,' he said, nodding at Étienne.

'Stop it,' she said.

'No, don't stop,' I said.

'She's not on your side, you're on hers,' he said. 'There's a big difference.'

'Everyone's so keen on taking sides,' I said. 'I'm on my own side and there's an even bigger difference.'

Tourniquet said something but I held up my hand like a beak and made it talk along with him. There was something irritating about him in that form, I suspected there might have been nothing deep about his appeal in his other form. I let him burble on for a bit.

'Stop,' Étienne said as I tuned back in. 'You're like a child.'

I wondered which one of us she meant.

'Weren't you going to offer us a drink?' Tourniquet said. 'She could do with one.'

'Of course,' Étienne said.

Tourniquet stared at me in a way that was supposed to provoke some kind of reaction so I made sure that I didn't give him the satisfaction. I watched Étienne make the drinks, which she did by some sleight of hand I couldn't follow.

'Oh, by the way,' Tourniquet said as I raised the glass to my lips. 'I wouldn't drink that if I were you.'

'Why not?'

'It might take the edge off.'

'Take the edge off what?'

'The outrage you're going to feel. It's got something funny in it.'

I took a long sip of the drink just to spite him. It tasted like a long summer evening.

'Can I keep her?' Tourniquet said. 'She's such a lot of fun. And you owe me.'

'No,' Étienne said.

'That's not fair, after everything I did for you. You want everything for yourself.'

'I'm not going to keep her either. She isn't ours.'

'The others were,' Tourniquet said.

'The others failed,' she said

'You're just annoyed about Rowling,' he said. 'She let you down, again. Mind you, you just strung her along, poor Rowling. Maybe next time you should take her under your wing like you did this one.'

'Why should I care about her? Someone had to lose, that's the game,' Étienne said. 'Have you forgotten what happened last time you annoyed me?'

'Temper, temper,' Tourniquet said.

They didn't make the rules they just moved the pieces around. All of the pieces, whatever side they were on. Tourniquet was right about the drink I thought as I looked at the bottom of the empty glass. It did take the edge off. I felt a smile shaping my lips.

'I really like her. It's not fair,' he said. 'I hate your experiments.'

'Don't feel too bad,' I said. 'At the end of the game all the pieces go back in the same box, doesn't matter if you're the castle or the king.'

Tourniquet looked from me to Étienne and back again. 'Or the queen,' he said.

'Enough,' Étienne said.

'All she's done, Sorcha, is even the score so she gets to play one more time,' Tourniquet said. 'There's always one more time.'

'I mean it,' Étienne said. 'Enough. I'm warning you.'

'You win,' Tourniquet said. 'I'm going. But I'll be back. Place your bets, Sorcha.'

Étienne opened the door and as Tourniquet stepped into the black I had to look away.

'So infuriating,' she slammed the door.

I didn't care. It was over. 'You're not going to make me do that, are you?' I said.

'No.'

She looked like my Étienne again.

'I want to give you something,' Étienne went over to a shelf. The book she chose was a thick volume bound in green leather with silver writing. She gave me the book and her fingers touched mine, it was subtle but deliberate.

'I'll have to get Roach to read it to me,' I said, flicking through the pages. There were a lot of figures that I recognised as numbers but the symbols and words I couldn't understand at all.

'It will be worth it, it will answer so many questions,' she said.

'Is it a bible from somewhere?'

'No,' she laughed. 'It's much more useful than that. It's a math's book.'

And then I laughed too. I suddenly felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and everything was as it should be. Étienne walked over to me and stood so close I could feel her breathing. She ran her thumb along the length of my cheekbone, her fingers in my hair.

'Blame me,' she whispered. 'Let me give you what I said I would.'

I woke up in bed, but it wasn't my bed, at least I didn't think of it as my bed at that point. Étienne's green book was on the floor by the mysterious bed. For moment I thought I was back in the penthouse suite, the room I could see through the half open door looked the same, but on further investigation I found no piano. That's when I also found it was my room. My stuff was there. It was funny how in this alternate time I'd hoarded the same junk. There was no bike though, no amount of searching or wishing would make it appear. I found a panel on the wall with an array of switches and pressed them at random. After a light show and the odd burst of music the curtains swung open revealing the view. It was daytime, the sun just up, in the same city I'd watched fireworks burst over hours before. I could see to the horizon, the tower blocks shimmering in the heat haze. But some of the buildings were blackened and others stopped in abrupt, jagged parodies of the skyscrapers they'd once been. It wasn't ruined but it was getting there. Smoke rose in slim black pillars, undisturbed by wind, from a building to the west and to the east five gigantic helicopters hovered in formation. They looked as though they had six legs hanging underneath them. I wondered where the other me was, the me that lived here, collected this junk, listened to these tunes, drank that rum, always the rum. The thought gave me vertigo so I moved some things around with my mind. At least that still worked, I figured I might need it.

The door opened itself on to a hallway, the walls were covered in flyers and posters for events that were so hip and ephemeral no one bothered to mention what year or what city they were happening in. The lift arrived almost before my finger had left the button. Inside, next to the top floors were pictures of the five of us, drawn by the other me it seemed. I had the top floor, then came Lola below me, Minos, Casino and Roach at the bottom. There were other drawings next to the rest of the buttons which suggested we had sole ownership of this hotel too. I was relieved, I couldn't imagine us sharing and I didn't want to. I pushed the button for the ground floor.

The hotel was tall and thin, with over thirty floors yet the same width as a couple of large shop fronts. The frontage was made of black glass, my reflection leapt and jinked in the panels as I walked along the street. I could hear sirens in the distance and birds singing nearby. Their songs had a strange metallic quality. All the buildings I could see were the same tall and glassy affairs. The streets were laid out in a grid. I looked up and down but I couldn't see anyone. Smoke, or maybe it was steam, came up through a manhole cover in the middle of a road and some lights changed from red to green but there was no traffic to take the instruction. There were craters in the road, some with thick cracks running between them. Shiny bugs the size of my foot scuttled at speed from one crevice to another. It was hot and the sun was bright. I wandered up and down until I felt lonely, like I was the only person on earth. I saw no one. I went back to the hotel, summoned the lift and hit the button for Lola's floor. I couldn't see Minos yet. I'd blurt everything out and it would come out wrong. Maybe he'd rather be dead. Lola's floor was not as big as mine, I really did have the penthouse suite. I hope I'd won it in a game or something, rather than taken it by divine right. Lola still had an extra room for a wardrobe, clothes thrown everywhere. I wandered around, poking through her things for a bit while she snored in the other room. I wondered what happened to the Lola who was here before my Lola arrived, was it an empty shell waiting for her to come and fill it or was there nothing here? I found it hard to believe the book would tell me.

'How the hell am I going to explain this to everyone?' I said to a stuffed elephant Lola had when she was child. It wasn't wearing as well as she was.

'Explain what?' Lola said, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Her hair was sticking up, full of static, and she wore a pair of plaid pyjamas.

'Oh, nothing much,' I sat the elephant on the shelf where I'd found him slumped. 'We're in an alternate reality, that's why no one could see us yesterday, we weren't really there, that's all.' I made it sound like we'd just popped to the shops.

'Oh,' she said. 'Oh.'

'Have you got anything to drink?' I said.

'I don't know,' Lola said. 'Have I?'

She hadn't, so we wandered about looking for the kitchen. I figured that it would be set up pretty much how home had been. Except this hotel had five stars and home was in deficit by about seven. We found the pool and it had clean, cool water in it, Lola was quite disappointed about that. We found a games room with a pinball machine and a roulette wheel. There were playing cards and chips all over the floor, it looked like someone had been a bad loser.

'Minos?' Lola said.

'I should think so,' I said.

We found a lounge with a fish tank that was full of fish, they were fluorescent and glowed in the blue light. We found the kitchen. It was a proper gourmet chef's kitchen, everything was stainless steel and expensive. We walked into the fridge, it was the size of a large wardrobe, and from the meager amount of food crowded on one shelf we took some juice and some bread and butter.

'So, we can't go back?' Lola said. 'It can't be fixed?'

'I'm sorry.' I shook my head.

'Don't be,' she tried a smile. 'It's a new start for us. Let's be optimistic.'

I tried to let optimism wash over me, I failed. It was only her shock talking anyway.

Lola gave me a hug. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'I'm glad we can still do our little magic tricks.'

'Maybe everyone here can do them,' I said.

'I'm not sure I would like that. I've got used to being special. Besides one invisible person sneaking around is more than enough.'

'It sure is,' I said.

'Should we wake them?'

'Probably.'

She went to put some clothes on. Then we would brace ourselves, wake the others and explore our new city together, pretend it was a playground. In the lift, by the button for the third floor the other me had stuck a picture of a bright pink brain beside the words nerve centre. I hit that button.

The third floor was alive with the sound of technology. It was cool in that dry, icy way that only very conditioned air could be. There was a formal sign on the wall, disrupted by random gig stickers, proclaiming the space before me to be the restaurant. Most of the walls had been covered in dark cloth, beneath most of them was more tinted glass. In the centre of the vast room was a column of monitors. They hung like a hornet nest, suspended between the floor and the ceiling. It was a more sophisticated setup then the one at home, nothing looked recycled or hacked. The monitors were showing footage from news channels and a binary data feed which I somehow knew was from a communications channel. It was hazy but the knowledge was there somewhere in my head. I wondered what else I knew now. I had to admit that was a quite exciting thought. I walked around the monitors. We, wherever, whenever and whoever we may be, were at war with another country. That other country was flying a flag no one had seen at home for years and years. The footage was a riot of khaki splashed with red, white and blue, everything glimpsed through thick smoke. My excitement crashed and burned. I needed some real air, not the recycled chill. Across the room were five sets of doors set in the dark cloth. The middle one was ajar. I opened it onto a balcony and breathed the hot, listless air.

'Sorcha!'

I looked down to the street. It was Prophet. He wore a crumpled linen suit and had plaited his beard so he looked far more respectable, but it was him. He was lying in the middle of the road under a large something that was all shiny and golden.

'What are you doing here?' Of course he would be here. He wasn't like us. He never was.

'I've got a present for you,' he said. 'Come down.'

He'd managed to get to his feet by the time I got there.

'Did she send you?' I said.

'Yes, I've got to go back in a minute,' he blew his cheeks out. 'It's a bit of a rough trip. They're having a hell of a row about you. I'd not be surprised if somewhere an apocalypse is being ushered in.'

'How did she send you?' I said. His back was covered in grit and dust from the where he'd been lying in the road.

'She said go and give this to Sorcha,' he said. 'Now.'

'You know what I mean,' I said. 'How did you get here?'

'No idea how she does it. She pushed me, shoved me right over. I can't move myself I need a guiding hand. Not like you I hear,' he said. 'Hey, I'm like a courier too, except I go long haul.'

'I hope it's better than her other present.'

'Why, what was that?'

'Something about the freedom to act without worrying about what would happen next. Or something like that.'

'No good?' he said.

'I think it was faulty, or I was.'

'Well, your feet point forward for a reason, you know.'

'Yes, otherwise I'd fall flat on my face,' I said. 'It's nice to see you but where's my present?'

'Over there,' he said, pointing to the wall.

There, wrapped in shiny gold paper, was a bike. It was my bike, all silver and skinny. I opened my mouth but no words came out.

'Thought you'd like that,' he said. 'Express delivery.'

'It's perfect, how did it get here? It was so smashed up.'

'Who knows? She's probably assembled it from eighteen different realities over more centuries that you can imagine. It probably pedals itself or something.'

I snorted. 'That's nothing. I can make it do that.'

We could hear shouting, the words all jumbled up together, unintelligible. I dragged Prophet and my bike into the hotel and we peered through the crack between the doors, one above the other like a stubby totem pole. The shouting got louder and closer but no clearer. Twenty or so people appeared in the street, they were running at blistering speed. They ran on the road and along the walls. Not along the tops of the walls, but along the face of the wall so their bodies were horizontal to the ground. They ran anywhere and any how they wanted. Every couple of strides one of them would take a huge leap and bound metres ahead of the others. They moved in unison but in discord too, like trout swimming upstream. There was something wonderful in the way that they ran. It made me want to run with them too.

'Who are they?' I said.

'What,' Prophet said. 'What are they, you mean.'

'What are they? What do you mean?'

'Time's up,' Prophet looked relieved but did find the grace to shrug an apology. Then all that was left of him was a queasy groan.

'Wait,' I said, too late.

There was a sultry purr as the lift doors opened behind me. 'Don't say a word,' Minos half fell out of the lift, the other three behind him. 'Just get me a drink.'

'Certainly, Minos Fry,' said a voice. 'What would you like?'

A slim figure stood behind the reception desk. His skin was too smooth and too pale, almost waxen. He was dressed in a black suit with a black tie and a crisp white shirt. His black hair lay in a precise parting to one side. He moved without effort of any kind around the counter and stepped towards us with a smile.

'Who are you?' I said.

'I am sorry. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Raphael. I am a part of the service and entertainment unit, version seven oh five. I'm from the Gargatron built nine series. I am here to serve you,' his smile was serene and satisfied. 'If I may say so, Sorcha Blades, it's very good to see you. We have been waiting for you for a very long time.'

I didn't know what game piece I was, but I had a horrible feeling that I hadn't been put back in the box with all the others. It was just going round and round and round. Tourniquet said a drink would take the edge off the outrage.

'You're here to serve us?' Casino said.

'Yes, it is my purpose. Do permit me to get you those drinks,' Raphael said. 'If I may say, you all look like you could do with one.'

'Very well, Raphael,' I said. 'I'll have a mojito. Heavy on the rum.'

###

# About The Author

SJ Griffin became a woman after successfully completing many years as a girl. After stints as an actor, a petrol station attendant, a copywriter, an editor, an amateur bike mechanic, a burger flipper, a playwright and riding an old fashioned bicycle in order to sell melting ice creams it became abundantly clear that the only thing she really wanted to do was write novels. So that's what she does. As a result she is far more pleasant to be around.

The Vanguard trilogy is the first stage of a long term strategy to remain pleasant to be around, for the general good of humanity. The second part of the trilogy, The Replacement, will be published on 21 June 2013 and the final part of the trilogy, The Perfectionist, will be published in January 2014.

Blog: <http://adventureswiththevanguard.wordpress.com/>

FB: <http://www.facebook.com/adventureswiththevanguard>

Twitter: <http://twitter.com/squintarium>

