Pixel Juice

BUG COMPASS

Zzzzs! Like the taste of the sun on the tongue of the young, the bright lick of fire that sparked from the belly of the candle bug. The brief, short flame that was made from its underside duct. Zzzzs! A warning sign, a mating call, a weapon also, and a fine thing for a couple of boys to catch, summer golden as they were, and light-headed with endless holiday. All that summer, as I recall, we would stalk the crackle of ignition and the tiny explosions that haunted the shoulder-high grass.

Zzzzs!

'Here! Quick! Here!'

'No. Gone. Missed it.'

'Damn!'

And drifting through the long days when the season hangs forever on the tips of the smoke grass, when school is a thousand hot miles away. Three weeks, four days, fourteen hours away, a time so carefully counted even as it disappeared in the heat haze. We said it was hotter than a hummingbird's armpit, and we laughed; but hottest of all was the fire that sparked from the candle bugs' arseholes. With two kids of seven and ten, imagine, running crazy with net and jam jar, to chase the plumes of smoke that drifted gentle and sunwise.

Finding was easy, reading the smoke trails, the spark and flash, and the heady scent. Gathering was hard, landing the bugs just before they cracked their wing-cases open, let spring the folded treasure, took flight.

Zzzzs!

'Here! Here!'

'No. Here!'

'Got it! Yes!'

Eliot was a whole three years older than me, and a wounded veteran of these fields; his hands already scarred with countless burn marks. His jar was forever filled with fire, mine only with a spark or two, and I didn't mind one bit, happy to play tag to his shirt-tail. We both lived on the nearby Shakespeare Estate, and to there we would descend, two grass-stained warriors, carrying our booty. I don't know, I guess this all sounds like kid's stuff, but I couldn't help feeling it would all soon be over. Eliot was already talking about girls as though they were something special. There was one girl, this Valerie he was always going on about. I guess I was clinging on to something, keeping him interested in the bug hunts.

Eliot's uncle would buy the candle bugs off us, so many pennies a bug, depending on the exchange rate. Uncle Slippy, Eliot called him, I don't know why; just that he never seemed to be where he was, I suppose.

'OK, how many you got today?' he would ask.

'Fifty-seven,' Eliot would answer.

'Five,' would be my reply.

'You lose, Scribble,' says Eliot. 'You'd better buck up.'

'Leave him be,' says Slippy.

It was Eliot that started calling me Scribble, ever since I'd shown him some of my nonsensical rhymes. Bad move, I know, except that I wanted him to realize I was good for something at least. It was one of those things, I liked it when he laughed at me. And it was strange that he made up nicknames for everybody, everybody except himself. It was a way of staying in control, I suppose, but that's only me looking back.

'Here's your money, boys,' Uncle Slippy would then say.

'Cheers, Uncle.'

'You both go on now, get out of here.'

We never wanted to go, of course. Uncle Slippy lived alone, in this becurtained old house at the end of our street. He seemed to live in just one of the rooms, a bedroom. It was full of assorted wonders, most of which had no explanation or purpose, I'm sure of it. He was a collector: of broken alarm clocks, and of exotic birds' feathers, but mainly of insects. An entomologist, he called himself. It was the best word I'd ever heard. Some of his prize specimens were mounted in glass cases on the walls, vividly painted monsters from all over the world. Others, the live ones, he kept in various murky fish tanks. I would press my face against them, better to see the mysteries involved. The dark flutterings, the sudden movement of what you thought was a leaf, say, or a flower head. Sometimes he'd tell us stories of the insects, and their strange powers, and how they were quite the most beautiful and intelligent species on the planet.

'I thought I told you two to get out.'

'What's this one, Uncle?'

'That one? Oh, now that's the Compass Bug.'

Once we got him started, you see, he just couldn't stop.

'The Compass Bug. It's a male. I've been looking for a female for years now. Want to breed them. I tell you, if you ever find one of them for me, my, would I be generous!'

And then he'd laugh out loud, as though we'd never catch anything that brilliant, not in a thousand years. So we'd look in the tank, at this hideous beetle. Must have been at least two inches long, coloured black and orange, with the black in the shape of a cross on its back.

'You find one of them,' he'd say, 'you'd never get lost, not ever. You'd be on the needle, my boys!'

So we'd ask why, but the lesson would be over for the day. Sometimes though, if we were lucky, if Eliot had brought in a good batch, Uncle Slippy would give us a candle bug of our own to keep, a tame one that is. He had a way about him, a secret way of making the bugs do what he wanted. That's how he made his living. He clipped the wings of the candle bugs, but that wasn't all, there was something he did to them that made them burst into flame only when you wanted them to.

Eliot and I would take this bug with us, and the money we'd earned. Usually we'd buy ciggies with the money. Then we'd go back into the field, and we'd use the tame candle bug to light a ciggie each. You had to hold them just so, between the forefinger and thumb, and squeeze, and then the fire would come out of their arse. And you could light a fag with them! That's what Slippy would sell them as: living cigarette lighters. He made a nice little profit out of them, and Eliot was always going on about the money we could make, if only we got to know the secret of taming the bugs ourselves.

'How do you think he does it, Scribble?' he would ask, sucking on his fag.

'Don't know.'

'I reckon it's something to do with them feathers.'

'What, the birds' feathers he keeps? Why's that?'

1 reckon they're Vurt feathers.'

'Vurt? No way. Not Vurt.'

'Got to be, I reckon. What do you reckon?'

'Don't know what I reckon. Not yet.'

We'd read a whole lot about these Vurt feathers in the papers, how they were supposed to be the best recording medium ever, even better than fractal cassettes. How music sounded more than alive on them, how they contained the best games of all time, how you could record all kinds of knowledge on them, knowledge that nobody yet knew about, even. There were loads of rumours about them. How you had to put them in your mouth, just to get the feathers to play back. So they said, anyway, the papers. I don't know, it all seemed a bit silly to my mind, but Eliot was always getting hooked on crazy rumours. Anything to get out of his head, and into some other kind of dream. He was growing up so quickly.

'But they have to be blue, don't they?' I'd ask him. 'Vurt feathers, I mean. That's what I read anyway. And Slippy ain't got any blue ones, not that I've ever seen.'

'Nah, they don't have to be blue.'

They don't?'

'Nah, that's just the legal ones.'

'You mean there's others?'

'Sure. Black ones, for instance- Don't tell me you've never heard of the black feathers.'

'No.'

'Black ones are the best. They're pirate copies. Illegal, like. Real snazzy. And Slippy's got loadsa black ones, hasn't he?'

'Sure, he's got loadsa black ones, doesn't mean they're Vurt feathers though. Vurt feathers aren't even on the market yet, not unless you've got a ton of cash anyway. And Slippy ain't got that kind of money, no way. Where's he gonna get a Vurt feather from? I reckon they're just normal feathers, like a blackbird's feathers for instance.'

'You reckon?'

'Yeah, that's what I reckon.'

'Well I think they're Vurt feathers, and I think that's how he gets to control the insects.'

We were just two kids with nothing better to do than lie in the long grass, smoking fags, listening to the candle bugs popping all around us, and playing with our very own tame candle bug, making its arse catch fire again and again until it was all used up. Just two kids talking about stuff we knew nothing about.

I guess I shouldn't have been that surprised at what happened next, knowing how Eliot's mind worked. And knowing how he didn't mind stealing things now and then, like comics and stuff, copies of the Game Cat magazine for instance, fags and stuff, or even, on one occasion, a pin-up of Interactive Madonna, just peeled it off the wall, rolled it up, walked out with it under his arm. But that was from shops, I never thought he'd nick things off his friends or his family.

So when he told me to meet up with him, about two weeks later, with the holidays nearly over and everything, I was expecting one last bug hunt before school started up again. I even turned up with the net and a jar. I guess I was right, in a way.

'You nicked it?' I said.

'Sure I did.'

Eliot had taken his shirt off. It sure was hot, that summer.

'Off your uncle?'

'Yeah, right out of his bedroom. I went round, asking if he wanted anything from the shops. He said he'd make a list, and while he was doing that, while his back was turned, I just nicked the first feather I could find.'

'Bloody hell! Let's have a look, then.'

'Careful with it.'

Eliot handed me the feather, the black feather. I held it by the tip, as though it was alive, or something, like it was dangerous. I spun it around, and the warmth of the sun seemed to catch in the flights, glittering.

'You see the way it sparkles?' Eliot asked. 'The colours? The pink bits?'

'Yeah.'

'It's not just black, you see. It's got stuff added to it.'

'Just colours, is all. Just a tiny bit of pink in it, is all. What does that mean, pink in it?'

'Don't know. But that's where the knowledge is, in the colours. Didn't you read that?'

'Yeah, I read that. Doesn't mean it's a Vurt feather, though.'

'Only one way to find out.'

'What? You mean…?'

'Let's do it.'

'Put it in our mouths? No way!'

'You scared, is that it? Scared of a feather?'

'That's not it, no.'

'What is it then?'

'You shouldn't have nicked it. Slippy will kill you.'

'So let's do it then, before he finds out.'

'OK, but you do it. You do it on your own. I'll just watch you doing it.'

'No. You're not supposed to do Vurt on your own. Didn't you read that?'

'Yeah. Yeah, I read that. Don't do it on your own.'

'So?'

'You reckon this will tell us how to tame candle bugs?'

'That's it, Scribble.'

'OK. But you first, then.'

'No, you first.'

'Why me first?'

'Because I'll do it, and then you won't do it.'

'How do I know you won't do the same?'

'Because I want to do it. Do you understand?'

'I understand.'

'Good. Give it here, then.'

So I give the feather back to Eliot. He tells me to open my mouth, which I do. Wider, he says. I open wider, wide as I can, just to get it over with. And he takes the feather, and he lays it against my lip, and it touches my tongue.

And all around the candle bugs are going wild. And the sun, the sun is beating down, like I can taste the sun on my tongue, and the tall grass is filled with wanting. And for a tiny second I think, Thank God, it's just a blackbird's feather after all, and then the sun bursts into flame, almost burns itself out.

Sudden.

And I slide away, sideways and down…

It's night. Somewhere in the world, it's night. I wake up in my bed. I can hear my mum and dad shouting at each other from downstairs. Maybe I should go and visit my sister's room. Desdemona doesn't mind if I wake her up sometimes, just to talk the night away, especially when Mum and Dad are arguing. So I get up. For some reason I must have gone to bed with all my clothes on, but it doesn't bother me. Then there's a knocking at my bedroom door. I say to come in, thinking it must be Desdemona, but it's Eliot who comes in. He says, come on, Scribble, we've got to find them bugs now, they must be living in your house. I think, of course, of course they are. We planned this earlier, this bug hunt, I must have forgotten until now. So we go downstairs, real quiet. I can't hear any shouting any more, only my captured breath, Eliot's whispered instructions, the slow chime of a clock. We get to the kitchen. It's dark, I want to put on the light, Eliot says no, we use the torch. He's brought a torch with him. I've got the net in one hand, the jar in the other. I can't remember when I picked them up. In the kitchen, tiny scrabblings can be heard, like ice cracking say, or gravel moving. It's coming from the sink. There's a pile of dirty dishes in there. Eliot tells me to get ready, he's going to switch on the torch. I stand poised with the net raised. The light, when it comes, seems as bright as the sun, and it dazzles me. And the sudden rush of a thousand pieces of orange, as the beetles scatter for darkness. I'm scared. Eliot yells at me to strike, so I bring down the net, just bring it down indiscriminately, crashing into the pots. What a noise it makes. But a slow noise, a coloured blue noise. Did you get one? Eliot asks. I say, Yes, I got one. I hold the net closed around the Compass Bug, as Eliot brings the jar over. We transfer it, seal the jar. It's done. The house has not stirred to our noise. What now? I say. Come on, Eliot replies, back to your room. Once there, sitting on the bed, we examine the beetle in its jar. It's beautiful. So orange, and the black cross on its hard casing. We did good, didn't we, Eliot? Yeah, Scribble, real good. He's sitting on my bed, his shirt off, then he lies down, so I can put my hand on his chest. It's hard, all bone. I stroke him gently and he lets me. He smiles. I let my hand move tenderly towards his belt buckle. He was proud of that buckle, it's in the shape of a twisted snake. I start to unwind it…

Shit!

What was that?

Some movement to one side of me, my body being forced away from itself, like a whiplash, and sideways and up and sudden.

The sun comes on.

I'm lying in the field. I'm lying on my back, and Eliot is standing to one side, dragging on his shirt. He's still holding the feather, except its not black any more, it's cream now. A dull cream.

'Fuck!' he says.

What was that?' I ask. 'What happened?'

'Nothing.'

His voice is tight, controlled, on the edge of anger.

'Nothing happened, do you hear me? Nothing!'

'It was a dream. It was like a dream.'

'Yeah, well, it wasn't my fucking dream.'

'Whose dream was it?'

'Shut up!'

'Whose dream was it?'

'Fucking Uncle Slippy! I always knew there was something up with him. Fucking pervert! This never happened, right? This never happened.'

'It never happened.'

I get up. My head is still buzzing with a distant colour. Eliot is already walking away from me. I pick up the net and the jar, to follow him. It's only then that I notice,

'I ought to have you two shot,' says Uncle Slippy. 'Do you know what you're messing with? You are messing with crazy stuff. Fucking kids! I wouldn't mind the stealing, long as you know what you're stealing. You're stealing my fucking pleasures!'

'We brought you the beetle, didn't we?' says Eliot. 'Brought you a Compass Bug.'

I hold up the jar for Slippy to see. He takes it off me.

'Stupid kid!' he cries. 'That's a male. I've got a thousand males. It's the queen I'm after. Males don't find nothing but females. It's the queen that finds the treasure. You won't get nothing off me for this. Nothing!'

'But…'

'You know the rules, do you? You know the rules of Vurt? Everything you take out of there, you have to give something in return. What did you give, eh? What did you give?'

I'm looking at Eliot, but he won't look back at me, he just won't.

'Nothing, Uncle,' he says. Says it quietly.

'Well you did. It's the law. And you'll find out one day, God help you.'

He hands the jar over to Eliot.

We don't see much of each other after that, not for a few weeks anyway, and with school starting and all that. But it's more than that, of course. It's an unspoken thing. I know Eliot is angry at me, like it's my fault. Maybe it is, I'm not sure. When I do bump into him, he's hanging out with lads his own age, and usually this Valerie girl is with him. He puts his arm round her. Kisses her. It's good. I'm glad. Maybe I can start my own growing up now.

One thing I notice, he's still got the Compass Bug with him. It's dead, of course. Beetles don't live very long, do they? He keeps the dead thing in a matchbox. Keeps it in his pocket. He says to me that he's never going to throw it away, not ever. He reckons it's his way forward, his pointer. He says his needle is really spinning now, spinning fit to burst. That's good, as well. That's something. I can understand, or at least, I can say I do.

And all his new friends, and this Valerie, they all call him the Beetle now. That's his new name. The Beetle. That's good, isn't it? It suits him.

'Come on, Beetle,' says Valerie. 'Let's go do that feather.' Eliot pulls a feather out of his jacket. It's a blue one. He waves it in my face. He's laughing at me. I don't know where he got it from. And they set off together, him and his mates, and I don't know whether to follow or not.

FETISH BOOTH #7

Having experienced various exasperations both personal and professional in the past year, none of which this narrative need dwell upon, a certain Janus Fontaine, former pop star, decided to end his life. Being of a famously dramatic nature, he chose a special date and time to stage his denouement: the stroke of the year's final midnight would be his orison, the cheers of a drunken crowd his mourning song.

He had no specific means of removal: no loaded gun, no carefully knotted noose, no dissolving of pills. Nothing so crude. Rather, he would lay himself open to circumstance. Somehow or other, the New Year's Eve celebrations would finish him. That's all he knew.

Apart from the ending, Fontaine's final day was well planned. At nine in the morning he awoke, heavy with last night's wine. He had a sliver of beef lodged behind a molar, which he niggled at with a furry tongue. Ten o'clock found him showered and shaved, and sprucely dressed as though for a business appointment or a romantic assignation. He took a late breakfast (full English with extra toast) in the dining hall of the Hotel Abyss. It was the first meal he had eaten outside his room.

He had arrived here from Manchester, only a week ago, and had refused all calls from the housekeeping staff, saying he could not be disturbed, even for a change of sheets. The occasional meal was to be left outside his door, along with copious amounts of alcohol.

As you can imagine, the sudden appearance of the guest from room 417 caused much speculation. He seemed normal enough, as he sipped his coffee and perused the morning's news. Some of the older staff remembered him from his better days, when the hair wasn't so thin, nor waist so thick, nor eyes so dim, and the voice not so bereft of song. One of them even approached him for an autograph, which was gladly given. Fontaine then paid his bill in full at the desk, and ventured forth. He had no luggage with him.

Informed that the occupant of room 417 had now left the hotel, the unluckiest cleaner in the world was assailed by a terrible stench of decay. The hotel room as battleground: all the towels were stained with excrement and blood; the bed-sheets thick with dried semen; the obligatory watercolour landscapes hacked to ribbons; the screwed-down television smashed to pieces, as were all the mirrors. Broken wine bottles glittered the carpet; cigarette smoke mapped every drift of air. A slew of pornographic magazines covered the bed.

Ten thousand pounds, in loose notes, lay on a bedside table, with a brief letter thanking the staff.

By this time, Janus Fontaine was pushing through the crowds on Tottenham Court Road. London town, the seething city. A palpable expectancy that was easy to get lost in. The people were too busy buying cameras, camcorders and dictaphones to recognize him. Janus was captured on a thousand lenses as he walked along, but only as just another face on that momentous day.

He wandered along aimlessly, allowing the crowd to carry him into the maelstrom of Oxford Street. He visited five or six stores during this period, spending some time in each one. He didn't buy anything. The longest time was spent in one of the larger record shops. Only two of his seven albums were represented, and those only in the 'Rock Bottom' bargain section. Eventually he reached Marble Arch and Speakers' Corner; he listened, for a while. Then he took a light lunch at one of the better hotels on Park Lane, using a tiny sliver of the large roll of cash he had folded in his pocket. His last resources. The waiter couldn't stop looking at the lone diner, and eventually got up the courage to ask if he really were 'Janus Fontaine, the pop star?'

Janus smiled.

'Oh, my mother will be thrilled when I tell her.'

A time to take stock.

The Encyclopaedia of Popular Music has little to say about Janus Fontaine, unable even to give his real name. He was born in Manchester. His first single, 'Plastic Flowers', was a number-one hit around the world. As was the follow-up. Even the third single did well. Following a marketing scandal, his fourth single, 'Pixelkids Come Out Tonight', reached only number ninety-five in the charts. His fifth, 'Sooner Than Summertime', along with the album (his second) of the same title, disappeared without trace. Nothing was heard from him for ten years, when he started a long, arduous come-back campaign, this time as a serious, adult-orientated artist. He made a series of critically acclaimed albums for a small, obscure record label. None of them sold very well. Current whereabouts unknown.

Whereabouts unknown? Alive or dead?

Hyde Park, where Janus was enjoying the dead trees and the skipping children and the dogs and the scent of love in the air. He watched a group of young women walk past, but not with any feelings of lust; just the smiles on their faces brought him joy, of a kind. A kind of joy that quickly palled. Also, it had started to rain.

He retreated into the Serpentine Gallery.

They were showing an exhibition by a young artist he had never heard of; all melted plastic and broken glass. This charmed him a little, and he spent an hour studying the work. Most visitors left in a minute or two, especially when it stopped raining. Janus Fontaine was still alive enough to appreciate the finer points of contemporary art. Living off his small royalties, his shrewd investments, his careful savings.

A life saved up, by degrees. What was the use of it?

Four o'clock found him lightly sleeping on a bench in the park, like a down-at-heart tramp, working off the alcohol. Upon waking, he noticed a small dog sniffing at his leg. Shaking the creature off, he set out once more on his journey.

He wandered along Constitution Hill, towards the Mall, in a slow daze. When was it going to happen? Darkness was slowly covering the world. The trees of St James's Park, to his right… all covered with darkness; the children still running… covered with darkness; the dogs, the tramps in the park, the posh folk to his left, in Marlborough and Pall Mall, the people gathering… all covered with darkness…

His short nap had left him feeling more than tired, and the day seemed to stretch out for ever in front of him. He needed to get drunk again, and not in public, so he booked into the next hotel he came to, a grand place. Paying cash in advance for a single night's stay, he spent an hour raiding the minibar in his room. That brought on the jitters. He lay down on the opulent bedspread, only to calm the monsters in his head. Instead, he fell sound asleep.

He awoke to the sound of the telephone. Confused, he let it ring, in and out of his half-grasped dreams. Finally, he realized what it was, answered it. 'Your alarm call, Mr Fontaine,' said the voice.

'What?'

'It's eight o'clock, sir.'

'Oh. Right.' Janus looked out of the window, trying to gauge the light. 'In the evening?'

'Yes, sir. As you requested.'

'Thank you.'

Strange, that he couldn't remember placing the alarm call with the reception desk. Groggy, he washed his face, got together his few things, left an overgenerous amount of money on top of the minibar. Stumbling out of the hotel, for a few minutes he couldn't place himself on the streets. Where was he? A surge of people carried him along, into Trafalgar Square. The place was packed already, alive with manic expectation. Janus realized he was still carrying a large amount of cash and, fearing pickpockets, he clutched his coat tightly around him.

Eventually he found an offshoot crowd, a tangential flow that carried him northwards, towards Cambridge Circus. Dragged along and pressed in, as he was, it made him calmer; now at last he felt a victim of fate. The city was moving to its own internal rhythms. Where would it lead him? A sudden hunger, a drunken loneliness, gnawed at his guts. Sensing a sudden sway in the crowd, he took advantage of the slight give to move towards Chinatown. Here the crowds were less manic, moving in blocks rather than streams. And the smells, and the look of the foodstuffs on display, all made him ravenous.

Of course, every restaurant was fully booked, but the ridiculous amount he was willing to pay, even for the plainest meal, soon got him a table to himself. He ate long, and heartily, in the banquet style, savouring every mouthful. He abstained from more alcohol, thinking it wise to keep his wits about him, now the end was in sight. But so very lovely was this, his last ever dinner, he would like to eat a thousand more. It was not to be. It could not be. The decision was made.

It was approaching eleven when he let himself be pushed into Soho. Crushed by a river, a river of flesh. The celebrating flesh, filled with photo-flash and camcorder-whirr. Flinching from the cameras, as though still world famous, Janus moved from the fashionable area to the seedy. Here, beneath the lurid displays, and surrounded by cries and entreaties, he knew for sure it would happen. It felt right, that it should take place amid such desperate, cheap pleasures. Loud, brazen music was pulsing from the beaded doorways; raucous voices promised specialist delights; realms of squeezed flesh offered themselves to him, demanding his attention. The narrow, dirty streets were blurred with the rain that dripped off bare neon, and coloured like a downmarket rainbow. Most of the clubs, the strip joints, the exotic cinemas and the live bedshow emporiums, were doing good business, as people threw aside their usual fears. Men and women were taking advantage of the sudden loosening as the end of the year approached, and the stench of pheromones was languid on the air. Queues were forming outside the more palatable establishments. The atmosphere was heavy, overwhelming, caustic.

A tramp, seemingly blind, was holding out a battered tin cup. Janus took some money out of his pocket, a random amount, and stuffed it into the cup.

Then, ducking down a dingy back alley, he found himself entering a strangely peaceful world. The alleyway was tiny, barely wide enough for one person to squeeze down. A series of locked steel doorways studded the walls, the locked fire escapes of the various strip joints. Rubbish bins overflowed with mounds of pulpy detritus. Halfway down the passage, a beaded curtain clacked sullenly below a sputtering neon sign that had once spelled PARLOUR OF FETISH, but now spelled LOUR OF FETI.

Janus looked back to the end of the alley, where the people thronged and sang and waited for the bells to ring. All of it seemed distant, and of little import as he turned back to the doorway. The strung beads swayed slightly, as though inviting custom. Quickly, before he could change his mind, the former pop star entered the parlour.

'Mr Fontaine, I presume?'

All was darkened purple within, and the thick scent of incense hung over a deeper, more rancid smell, barely cloaking it. Janus waited for his eyes to adjust. 'Do you recognize me?' he asked of the voice, whose owner could not yet be seen.

'No. I assumed it was you.'

Now a figure, a man, an old man, emerged from behind a low counter. He was carrying a book, a ledger of some kind. 'You have made an appointment,' he announced, in a voice as smoky as the room.

'Appointment? No… I…'

'Oh, it's all down here.' The old man had opened the book, was running a finger down a page. 'Mr Fontaine. Eleven-thirty p.m. You are slightly late, but never mind. Shall we choose?'

'Look… I…'

'Quickly. Which shall it be? One, two? Three, four? Five or six?' The man was gesturing in turn to each of six doorways, all of them hidden behind velvet curtains. 'You have the payment, I presume?'

'Yes, I have it here.' Janus took out his wallet. Once again he felt the pull of circumstance. 'How much will it cost me?'

'Well that depends, of course, on which booth you choose. Each is quite delightful, in its own way. And together they offer every possible desire. Will it be submission, or domination? The English vice, perhaps? Bondage is always popular, whereas the animal is a more select taste. Or else you are a user of criminal devices? Which will it be, I wonder?'

Janus looked at each of the booths in turn, trying to make his mind up. His eyes, filled with the incense, started to water. The room seemed to revolve slightly, as though on a slow treadmill. Another doorway, another curtain appeared beyond the first six.

'What's behind there?' he asked.

'Ah, booth number seven. You truly are a connoisseur, Mr Fontaine. Perhaps it is beyond your means?'

Janus opened his wallet, took out all the money that remained. This substantial roll of cash he silently handed over. The man smiled, gently, as he flicked through the notes. 'You have chosen wisely. Please, enjoy…'

Janus walked, slowly, over to the seventh booth. Distantly, as though from another country, another time, he could hear the chimes of midnight, the cheers of the crowd, the dull whiz and pop of fireworks. Hesitating only for a second, he pulled back the curtain, and stepped through.

PIMP! - THE BOARD GAME

This is by far the most complete of all the items on exhibit at the Museum of Fragments. It was dated and copyrighted in 1997. All of the more obscure terms can be found in any good dictionary of the late twentieth century. (See addendum* for further, more speculative remarks.)

(text begins)

· 1 game board, depicting a stylized map of the Soho area of London; 4 playing pieces (Pimp, Prostitute, Punter, Pig); ?100,000 in play money, of various denominations (not to be used as legal tender); 30 assorted Pleasure cards; 30 assorted Punishment cards; 30 assorted Fetish cards; 4 Sexual Stamina Charts; 2 dice (six-sided, twelve-sided); 1 instruction leaflet.

· The game of Pimp! is to be played by four players, who choose by luck of the draw to play either the Pimp, the Pro, the Punter or the Pig.

· Each player has a different objective, which they may undertake alone, or by forming alliances with other players.

· Movement around the board is governed by the throw of the dice, or by utilizing any stamina points they may have won during play.

· The winner is the first player to reach their given objective, or to find themselves the last player alive.

· Players begin the game at their designated starting locations, as marked on the board: the Pimp at the Pad; the Pro on the Street Corner; the Punter at the Pub; the Pig at the Police Station.

· Each player starts the game with the following amounts of money: the Pimp receives ?100; the Pro ?50; the Punter ?200; the Pig ?1,000. The rest of the money forms the Bank. Money can be lost or gained during play, depending on the skill of the player. If any player's resources dwindle to zero, they are deemed to be out of the game, unless they can persuade any of the other players to lend them money.

· All players receive 6 sexual stamina points to begin with. These may be supplemented by certain Pleasure cards, or else gained by visiting the Drug Dealer's pad. If a player's sexual stamina drops to zero, they are deemed to be out of the game.

· All players receive 2 Fetish cards to begin with. Others may be gained during play.

· Pleasure and Punishment cards are to be taken up whenever a player lands on the designated squares (the telephone booths), or when forced to take them by another player. All actions described on these cards must be undertaken immediately, unless the player can 'buy' his or her way out of it. Fetish cards, however, can be used as desired, as long as the player has the required sexual stamina.

· To successfully complete an objective, the winning player must get back safely to the correct starting location.

· The Pimp must take all the money off all the other players, without being arrested by the Pig. The Pro must not leave him; the Punter must not beat him in combat.

· The Pro must get through the night with her initial resources intact, and without being arrested by the Pig. She must not fall in love with the Punter, or get beaten up by the Pimp.

· The Punter must have sex with the Pro, without being arrested by the Pig. He must try to get the Pro to fall in love with him, thereby not having to pay her. He must not be beaten in combat by the Pimp.

· The Pig must arrest the Pimp. He must receive a bribe off the Punter. He must have sex with the Pro, without paying.

· Sexually Transmitted Diseases: if infected, a player will lose an escalating number of stamina points each turn. Cures can be found at the Drug Dealer's pad, or from the Ail-Night Chemist's.

· Sex without a Condom card increases the risk of disease by ten points.

· Various illegal drugs can be purchased from the Drug Dealer. If a player experiences a Bad Trip, two stamina points are lost. Poppers increase the strength of Pleasure cards by five points.

· Any player caught in possession of drugs by the Pig loses 6 points, unless they give the drugs to the Pig as a bribe.

· If the Punter is spotted by his Wife, he loses 5 points.

· The Pimp must be male. The Pig must be male. The Pro may be male or female, or transsexual. The Punter may be male or female. If the Punter is male, and the Pro is male, the Punter is deemed to be Homosexual. Homosexuals play the game at greater risk.

· If the Pimp is killed, any other player can become the new Pimp, except for the Pro, for whom there can be no escape.

· The Pig may never be arrested, not even for murder.

· Any player surviving Fetish Booth # 7 is deemed to have won the game, even if their overall objective is not yet reached.

(text ends)

* Addendum. The actual 'game', to which the above leaflet offers instruction, has never been found, nor any mention of it. This has led to certain theories stating that the game was meant to be played 'for real' on the streets of Soho. Some commentators have even speculated that the instructions refer not to a game at all, but to real life.

CHROMOSOFT MIRRORS (V.4.2)

The dramatic rise and fall of the Chromosoft empire has already been expertly charted, especially the part that Mirrors version 4.2 played in the short and dramatic end. I offer the following story as a more human addendum to the official history. It may illuminate a dark passing, if only with a single beam of truth. Concerned as they are with the bigger picture, none of the extant histories have managed to reveal the actual person responsible for the final, terrible error. It was, of course, Chromosoft's policy that all mistakes be veiled by collective responsibility.

My grandmother, Elisa Gretchen, died before I was born. Any knowledge I had of her life came through borrowed memories, until my discovery of her private journal. I need not go into the details of this discovery, except to say that the primitive nature of the recording medium necessitated the expensive purchase of an antique cd-rom player.

Elisa was on the famous skunk team that came up with the original idea for the Mirrors technology (code-named the 'Alice' project), and was active during all stages of its development and demo-testing. Later on she was assigned to the troubleshooting team, which suffered heavily during the fretful launch period. Version 1.0 was riddled with bugs, and the new interface itself so strangely inhuman that the critics were quick to predict the company's demise, especially with its main competitors riding high on the 'back to nature' campaign of the fashionable DOS revival. Version 1.1 ironed out some of the problems, and v.1.2 introduced the new feedback loop dynamics. It was the major relaunch, with v.2.0, that really kick-started the product's unprecedented success. With a brand-new interface, greater thought-recognition software, and an inspired marketing campaign centred around the slogan, 'Chromosoft Mirrors - where's your head today?', the whole world turned to gaze in on itself.

The problem with Windows - the most famous interface prior to Mirrors - was that the more advanced it became (version 491.7!), the more difficult it was to use. And for all its increasing complexity, still all you ever did was use the technology; it never used you. Thus was the Mirrors project initiated. A new simplicity was called for, something beyond windows, beyond the blinkered one-way gaze. Although my grandmother makes no claim to inventing the actual concept, she does write that the name 'Mirrors' was her invention. It came to her in a flash, one evening in a Parisian hotel bathroom, 'after a rigorous bout of continental-style lovemaking', as she puts it in her journal.

It wasn't the first system to use thought recognition, of course, but the first to successfully marry it with a usable feedback loop. Put simply, previous attempts allowed you to change the screen by thinking about the changes, but only Chromosoft allowed the information to redirect your thinking in turn. The Mirrors system really was a new way of working, a new way of being.

Where's your head today? Gone downloaded.

As it did with the invention of the typewriter and the word processor, a new type of creation emerged from the mirror. Suddenly, 'speed of subconsciousness' novels were, all the rage. Punctuation mutated into mere rhythm, narrative dissolved, symbols became deeper, more dreamlike, more dangerous.

Version 3.0 introduced the concept to a network. Version 3.4, to the Internet. These were radical upgradings, with long-lasting social effects; because, although it wasn't strictly true that we were all telepathically linked, it certainly felt like it. The Internet's long-promised 'revelation of the global soul' suddenly seemed less of a pipe dream, more of a God-given right. Version 4.0 added little that was new, merely a cosmetic repackaging to fend off the latest clones. 4.1 was another tweakjob, and it was this version that became the standard for the next three years.

The public will always find its own use for technology, and usually in secret. Nowhere in the Mirrors manual did it warn against remaining connected whilst asleep. Nowhere in the manual did it even mention that such a thing could be done. And nowhere did it mention the effect this could have on the human psyche: the ability to get up in the morning, simply to access the correct document, and then to view, or rather review, your dreams of the night just gone. Could the company have seen how this would lead to a possible madness, a knowing of one's self that was too deep, too far-ranging?

Where's your head today? Why, it's playing with the burning giraffes, dancing with a turquoise lobster on the top of a grand piano, thank you, Mr Penguin.

Many were affected by this dream-knowledge, and many did not make the journey back from the twisted, inner world.

I can now reveal that it was my grandmother, Elisa Gretchen, who developed and introduced the disable dream switch to version 4.2 of the Mirrors system. Approximately 6 per cent of the world's population activated this facility, before the dangers of it were realized. Could Chromosoft, could my grandmother, really have so easily forgotten the feedback loop in the user/device interface? Her journal mentions little of the moment of invention, and even less of the subsequent events, except to note the 'burning sense of shame that welled up within me, a shame that persisted even after the corporation had taken control of all responsibility'. Her last recorded entry reads simply: 'I can do no more.'

Chromosoft Mirrors was taken off the market by government order, and all existing devices were recalled, and trashed. By then it was too late for the 6 per cent who had already succumbed to the censoring loop. Those darkened, veiled unfortunates, who would never dream again.

I need hardly add that my grandmother was one of those unfortunates.

CLOUDWALKERS

Scattermasked, working the all-night leisure zones, keeping check on the flotsam and jetsam that played the cheap graveyard rates. It was the end of a five-night shift and some dumb-arse flot had got himself hooked on a pirate trans. By the time we got there the game was frozen solid and overlaid with these stupid dancing prawns. Low-level broadcast, most probably from Beenie's Fishorama over on Level 5. There was no slogan, no slugline, just the prawns. The advert was in the image, and by now the desperate need for some seafood would be implanted in the kid's head. Another two kids, bystanders, had also got caught in the thrall, which was what we called this state of freeze, and a girl standing nearby was saying, 'Best do the deed, lady.' Gumball came up then, saying he'd got a warning bleep from HQ, a nasty on line. 'Come on, Muldoon. Leave the flot till later, eh?' And he pulled the gum out of his mouth, a livid blood-red it was, stretched it full size, and then snapped it back in with the practised tongue-flip.

'No. Only take a minute. And get that mask on.'

'I was only renewing the flavour.'

'That's an order.' I had the spoiler gun out, checking the load and the flush on it. Some of the flots were still unholed enough to notice the noise, and their eyes were bleary and game-fried as they watched me handle the weapon.

'Muldoon, what's wrong with you these days?' Gumball had his scattermask back down, his voice muffled by it. 'You want to lose a big score?'

'Get the van started, Gum. I'll be there.'

Finally I swung the spoiler over to the screen, took aim, fired. The game-screen seemed to melt for a second, turning pixelshima, and then came back online with a hard reboot. The prawns were dead adverts, and the game was back in play. The flotboy jerked into action, fingers jabbing automatic at the duck-and-dive buttons, too damned slow. Screen death. 'Shit! How did that happen?' His freshly thawed spectators laughed some, till they all noticed me standing there, mask down and the needle in my fist.

'Oh shit!' said the player. 'What did I get? Say, my friends, let's go catch some seafood.'

I went to jab them, but Gumball stepped in, caught my arm. 'We'll catch the flot in Beenie's later, give him the spoiler shot there. Come on now. We got a nasty. Big prizes!'

I came out of it then, this voodoo mood I was in. I felt like I'd come unfrozen myself, and that made me shudder. Got me thinking about Parker again. I pulled up my mask to get some air. It was safe, now the advert was dead. Most of the flots had gathered around the action, and some jets in there as well, slumming it. Flotsams were those that society had thrown aside; jetsams had left of their own free will. And all of them had eyes for the spoiler gun hanging from my belt. I could see them clocking up imaginary scores, dreaming their brains away with thoughts of getting their sweaties on such a piece. One of them in particular, the cheeky young jetgirl that had been telling me my job earlier, she had this look of complete 'shop' on her face, the illegal kind. Gumball had seen the look as well. 'So join the commcops, knucklebrain,' he spat at the kid, 'you want some good leisure.'

A minute later we were back on mission, riding the jeep through the shopping lanes, towards the up-chute. Gumball, jaws hard at it still, had switched to manual drive. I swear I never saw a man put so much into chewing gum, it was like an art with him, and never a word was said without it coming round the sides of a sticky lump of Gob Spectrum. He claimed it made his head slick, and he sure drove like it; crash-wired and genetic, with the siren singing hosanna and the usual darktime shoppers screaming wild to get out of our flight path. Meanwhile, I pulled the new job-stats out of the dash.

'Will you look at that!' shouted Gumball. 'We got us an Apex rogue. Didn't I tell you this was a big scorer? Bring on the bonus!'

We were in the up-chute now, floating up past levels six and seven. Apex was copslang for the APXC coding: Approach with Extreme Caution. And there were too many unknowns in the printout, and all I could think about was…

'What's wrong, Muldoon? You don't want some bonus?'

I realized that Gumball had been talking all the while. 'What?'

'Jesus, you're out of it tonight, girl.' He snapped his gum, hard, driving with one hand to do it.

'Just get us there, Gum. And quit the girl stuff.'

'Sorry, ma'am. Officer Muldoon. Janet, my dearest.'

'Will you-'

'Oh… I get it… it was an Apex that got Parker, right? The staircase. Doesn't mean this is the same one.'

'I want full effect on this, Gumball. You hear me? Mask on at all times, and no go without my orders.'

'Sure. Hey, that was bad, I hear, with Parker. Some of the guys were talking about it. You were with him, right? What happened? I mean, really.'

'Will you shut the fuck up!'

'Right. Touchy. Sure thing.'

We were on Level 10 now, and turning into Lane 29, where the Dollberg unit was. Another commsvan was already pulled up outside the store, with a bunch of cops standing around, looking nervous. We pulled up hard, and when I got out, it.was Chief Inspector Brendel in the other van. Scattermasked, of course, but I could tell her from the shape; no-one that fat ever got to work the patrols, strictly desk-job. She called me over, and I did the salute, and she did the greetings, then she asked me to get in the van with her. She leaned close, till our masks were almost knocking together. 'Officer Muldoon,' she stated, 'I don't want you in there.'

'But-'

'It's too soon. This is a bad one. I can't afford to mess up again.'

'It's the same one? The stairway?'

'Never mind what it is. Officer Drane, here, will handle it.'

Drane, a big strapped-in guy, was looking over at me, that stupid smile on his face. It was difficult to tell him apart from the still-dancing autodolls in the store window.

'No way! This is mine. Parker, he-'

'You're excused. Thank you, that is all.'

'I know this rogue. Who else does? I can handle it. Drane can't handle it. He doesn't know. It does things to you. Makes you want to-'

'Janet… please.'

Here we go. It was always bad when Brendel called you by the first name. The switch to casual meant a dismissal in no time, unless you backed down.

'Ma'am. Of course. Please forgive my speaking out of turn.'

'Granted. High stress, no doubt. And too personal. You know how that messes up a job.'

'Yes, ma'am.' I was speaking from a distance, as Drane and his team prepared to enter the Dollberg store.

'Never get too close, Muldoon. And this is woman to woman, OK? Colleagues are not for loving. You understand? I'm sure you do.'

'Right.'

I walked back to the van, where Gumball was loading up. 'We're off this one, Gum,' I said to him.

'Off it! Shit, it's our call. Apex call.'

'Let's go check out Beenie's for the infected flots.'

'You do that. I'm staying.'

'You stay, Gumball… it's your last job.'

'Ma'am.'

We climbed back in the van. Gumball drove on empty for a while, but I stopped him around the first bend. 'OK, we watch from here.'

'We do? What is this?' He was raising his mask.

'No. Keep it on.'

I had a bad feeling, you see, and I knew Brendel was at a loss on this one. And when we walked round the corner, I could already hear the cries and the screams from the store, and see the chaos that the commcops were thrown into. Brendel was struggling to get out of her van, and even from the end of the lane, the look on her face, the fear…

'Jesus! What the-'

It was Gumball's voice, and I swear he actually took the gum out of his mouth to say it. But what could I do? He was all set to run, to give help, but I called him back. I wanted to tell him how bad it would be, and how hopeless and if only people listened to me, once in a while, wouldn't life be better, easier, more long-lasting. But the mood of before, the distance from the world had come upon me again, folding like a stranger's shadow.

Later, I went with Gumball to visit Beenie's Fishorama. I guess we were, the both of us, hiding our despair behind the workload. First of all we rounded up Mr Beenie himself, told him the usual about transmitting illegal adverts, confiscated his broadcaster, slapped another fine on him, his seventh in that year alone. Then we found the flotboy from before, which was easy; him and his friends were tucking into plate after plate of spicy prawns. I gave him the spoiler shot, which he had to receive by law, and of course, a few seconds after the stuff had entered his veins, he threw up violently. The jetgirl was there as well, the one who had been fixed upon my spoiler gun. This was strange, because flots and jets kept well apart usually, and anyway, she wasn't eating, not having seen the prawn advert up front. Again, she was all eyes on me, on the uniform, the upraised scattermask, the gun, especially the gun.

Meanwhile, Gumball had succumbed to a plate or two of prawns himself. 'I must have got a glimpse,' he said. 'Never mind, eh? I'm hungry anyway.'

'No, you're not, Gum,' I answered. 'I told you, mask on, all times.'

I didn't eat, myself, still too strung out from the Dollberg incident. But we sat together, and I watched Gumball tackle his meal. His chewing gum was stuck on the table beside him, for later use. It was a sickly green this time, the colour of a bad moon. And between every mouthful, my new partner was full of spittle and talk.

'What about Drane, eh? Thank Christ we didn't go in. Hey, I should thank you for that. Jesus! What'll happen to him, Drane I mean? The same as Parker?'

I shrugged, keeping the mood cool. Really, I just wanted to finish this shift, get some sleep.

'You were close to him, weren't you? Parker, I mean. So the boys tell me. I mean, you had a thing going on, right?'

'Wrong.'

'Wrong? But I thought-'

'Look, Gum. Shut up, will you. Eat the prawns.'

'Sure I will. Nice prawns, these. What happened?'

'What?'

'You know, with you and Parker, and this… what is it? This staircase advert thing. I mean, what's so fucking bad about it?'

'You've read the reports.'

'Official-line bollocks? Never touch 'em. I want the truth, Muldoon. I mean, don't I deserve it? Nobody wanted to take Parker's place, you know? You're down as a bad deal.'

'You think I care?'

'Do I fuck think you care. Ain't that why I like you?'

I didn't tell him everything, of course. I left out the worst part. But I kept it truthful, and I kept it cool and neat, because telling it like that, like a story that had happened to somebody else, well it brought a calmness to me. It started, as most of our jobs do, after the beginning. It's double-bonus time if we catch an advert before it's affected anybody, especially the killer thralls. Usually, we're too late to save the first victims. We're just the cleaners, really; we go in after a bad show, we make it safe again for the taxpayers. Apex jobs are a recent trend, and the Stairway trans was my first. Parker's last.

He was only a kid really, Parker, and I should've looked after him better. He'd been my partner for about two months when the trouble started. I knew all about the locker-room gossip, of course. There's still only a few of us women in charge of teams, and Brendel's decision to set me up with a kid ten years younger than me, well… let them talk. But we had a thing, you know, a way of working together that was good. Parker respected me; it wasn't the constant battle of wits, like with Gumball and all the rest. I really should've looked after him.

We first got word of the trouble when a too-high proportion of people started killing themselves. Lobjobs, mostly, and usually off the top of prominent buildings. It was a public display, a grand exit. It was fairly obvious that an advert was to blame, but tracking it down to source was proving difficult. The adverts they've got these days, it's not just buying the latest gizmo; they can make you do anything. That's why we have the strict controls; that's why we're here, the commcops. Someone should've realized that bad people would get hold of the technology, because don't they always? So, we'd had killer transmissions before, but never this successful, and never this prominent. It was the number one job on the crime sheets, and we were getting nowhere on it, until a victim came forward.

This guy was in a right state, babbling mainly, and screaming about a stairway, 'a golden stairway, endlessly… endlessly…' Eventually, we got some sense out of him. He'd been sitting at home, quite peacefully, watching a game show on television. His wife was with him. The children, thankfully, were upstairs at the time. They missed the advert. The advert that came out of nowhere, just sitting in between all the other adverts that plagued the TV that night, and nothing strange about it, just this image of an endlessly rising stairway. No words with it, no slogan, but that was the norm. The usual freeze. The freeze and the thrall. Legal ads were low-level interference, and you could easily resist their temptations with a little will-power. So they'd thought nothing of it, this man and woman, except they both dreamed that night of the stairway, and of going up it, and what they might find there.

The next day, two in the afternoon, the wife had thrown herself out of the top-storey window of the office where she worked. That was five days ago, and distraught as he was, and full of suffering for his lost wife, how could the husband not want to join her? This is when he read about the spate of similar suicides. God knows what resources he had conjured up to get himself as far as the commcop station.

Brendel wanted to place him under arrest, for his own safety, but the authorities would have none of that. So we filled him up with the maximum dose of spoiler juice, and then let him go. He lasted two days. Of course, we had a cop on his tail the whole time. Did no good; he shook the cop off, just for a minute.

A minute's a long time when you're falling…

Things got bad then, because the story broke loose. The media were hounding us, and Brendel was on a sharp edge. She cancelled all leave, tripled the bonus for the Apex score, got the lab boys working full-time on the transmission source. The only good thing they could find was how the stairway ad would only ever appear on one receiver at a time. What we call a narrowcast. It would turn up on a private TV, a computer screen, an arcade game. Never on a public system, like a cinema screen. As though the advert was picking people off, one by one. Sniper mentality. We tried putting out our own adverts, warning people not to watch, or play, or in any way to have serious leisure time. We did the usual pointless appeal to the TV and game companies, asking them to suspend all transmissions. Like, yeah, sure we'll cut off our money supply, just on some unsubstantiated claim about a killer ad. Get out of here. So we distributed free scatterglasses, cheap and nasty ones, which is a bit like getting flotsams to wear pinstripe suits. No deal, and you can't reach everybody, not all the time, so I guess we all got to feel like warriors, us commcops, naked on the streets against this invisible, deadly enemy. How else explain what Parker did, what I let him do?

It was a Sunday night, quiet time in the all-night arcades. The usual flots and jets to unfreeze, no big deal. Parker was getting bored, and itchy. He was expecting more of the job, of course he was, young like that; I was the same. Pretty soon you get to find out that being a commcop isn't quite like the recruiting images, and I tried to give him the real package. Stupid kid wouldn't listen, going crazy he was, with fighting talk about how he was gonna take this stairway fucker out, once and for all. He was hot for it, and I couldn't help but get a secret pleasure, remembering mainly, remembering how it had been when I first started out.

We found a group of flots gazing full on at a game screen. Locked solid they were, and as we came up, I was dreading seeing the stairway there. This had been my fear, the last few weeks: coming across a spectator in thrall to the killer. Luckily, it was just a slowly rotating pair of plastic trainers up there on the display, saying in secret, 'Buy me! Buy me! Buy me now, you stupid suckers!' Easy game, because this had all the design flair of a camel's arse, and was obviously a trans from Minskey's Muscle, a sports shop only two blocks away. Parker was mad keen to shoot the trainers himself, he had the gun out and loaded and everything, so I said, 'This one's yours, kid', and went off to slap the fine on Minskey.

Big mistake. Because it took longer than I thought, what with Minskey putting on a show, and his pumped-up sales assistants hanging round in sub-pensive mode. All around me were banks of screens playing out the same commercial, and variants thereof, and here this guy was, claiming he 'didn't never have such bad adverts, no ma'am, not never. See now, these good adverts, clean adverts, no nasties. No freeze. See?'

All the time I was hoping Parker would hurry up. I needed the back-up. What was the kid doing? Surely he'd done the deed by now, come on. In the end I had to walk out of there empty-handed, which pissed me off. So I was all set to give the grief to my so-called partner. I was acting mad for my own failure, I know, and maybe the kid was having trouble, it's just that I can't stand not making a clean case of a job. And by the time I get back to the arcade, the place is deserted, all the games standing empty, forlorn with abandoned play. No flots, no jets, no Parker. So I'm looking round and getting worried, when I hear this noise from the next aisle, a kind of screaming sound. Like human, through the mincer. Straight off, I should've called for back-up. Instead I was just running over there, towards the bad sound, because the sound got me in the guts. Bad reaction getting to me. Round the corner, I see a bunch of people going crazy outside this one shop. The screaming coming from them. OK, get up close, and slow down, slow down, check the situ, play the book. The shop was a dark-eye, shut for business. Abandoned, read the slashed-on sign across the window. The door thinly open. OK, what's the score here?

'My sister! My sister! Help her! My sister!'

One freaked-up flotboy, coming right on at me, making me sweat, so desperate. And someone else, saying, 'It's the stairway thing, pretty sure it must be.'

'She's in there?' I ask.

'Get her out!' screams the boy. Keeps on screaming.

'Where's my colleague?'

'Uh?' Voices.

The other cop, where is he?'

'He went in.' Voices all round.

Shit.

I look around the crowd, most of them quiet now and just looking at me, as though I could save one of their kind, but all I was thinking about was Parker, that stupid fucker, going in alone. I think that's when I got round to calling HQ for the back-up van, Apex coding. Of course, I didn't wait, how could I? Instead, pull the mask down tight, load the spoiler, kick the door wide, step through.

Dark. Dark in there. Only the faint buzz of colour through the scatter, vapour from some screen, way back. No sign of Parker or the girl, and what the fuck was a television doing on, in this dump? Moving through, beam on, I see signs of cheap habitation, spread duvets, camping stoves, pots and pans. Flot squat. In the dark my beam flashes on something, a rolled-up duvet or something, then I see it's a kid, a young girl. She's lying on the ground, all cradled up in herself, gently rolling, back and forth, back and forth. And when I bend down, turn her over, and she opens her arms for me, I see this amazing thing - she's got a mask on. A commcop mask.

'Jesus, I didn't know that,' said Gumball. 'You mean…'

'Yeah. Parker took his mask off, gave it to the girl. He saved her life.'

'Jeez!' He'd finished his prawns by now, and the gum was back in his mouth, and he was chewing on it, but slowly. 'That's fucking brave!'

'It's stupid. But yeah, brave, I suppose. I found him there, stuck fast in front of the television. He had the gun out and everything, and he was pointing it at the screen, and I swear he was trying to shoot, even with the thrall on him. He had tears… tears on his cheeks, frozen. That's when I heard the backup sirens. Too fucking late, course they were.'

'Hey, don't blame yourself, Muldoon.'

'Why not? You got someone else handy?'

'So…' And here he stretched the gum out of his mouth in a long line - a dirty yellow this time - and then let it snap back. 'So what did it look like?'

'The advert? Well, I had the mask on, so I was only getting the filter. Just some stairs, nothing special. Animated, so that they kept rising upwards, and never ending. Looked kinda cheap, really. You know, amateurish.'

'That's it?'

'That's it.'

'Jeez!'

'Yeah. Let's clock off.'

But when I started to get the gear together, I saw this kid looking at me from the next table along, listening distance. It was the jetgirl, the one with the hard shopping eyes, and away from her flottish friends now. She was smiling at me.

'What's up with you?' I asked her.

'Nothing much, just listening.'

'This is cop business," said Gumball. 'Get the hell out of here. Bloody flots!'

'I'm not a flot. I'm a jet. How dare you?'

'All the bloody same. Nothing better to do than play stupid games all night long.'

'They're not games. It's an art form.'

'Yeah, right.'

'I'm good at them. I get to cheat, you see. It's a secret, cause the cheating's built into the art. You have to discover it, then you progress. The next level.'

Gumball stood up. His mouth worked at the gum like a machine, a rainbow machine. 'I'll progress you!' he snarled, and when he spoke, you could see all the colours inside, caught in the change.

'Sit down, Gum,' I said to him. 'Just a kid, that's all.'

'You're not telling him everything, are you?'

She'd said this directly at me, with a look in her eye, a knowing look.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Tell him about the mask.'

'What is this?' asked Gumball.

I ignored him, kept my eyes on the girl. She looked so young, nine or ten, although you can never tell for sure, not once they're on the street. 'What do you know?'

'Stuff.' And she smiled again.

'What's your name, girl?' I asked.

'Lucy. What's yours?'

'Never mind that. You'll have to come with me, I'm afraid.'

'Smashing. Will I get to be a commcop, please?'

So I sent Gumball on his way, clocked off with HQ on the bleeper, and then offered to buy the jetgirl some breakfast. This she readily agreed to; not prawns, just coffee and biscuits would do. She sat there, slurping away. I took a look at her; quite good-looking, incredibly slim, like I could pick her up like a feather. And well-dressed like all the jets were. Compared to the flots of course, who were trash personified. I asked her why she'd left home, and she said that home was for the lonely, and I could connect to that. I was a commcop, wasn't I?

'I can look at adverts,' she said, with a crunch of biscuit. 'Bet you can't.'

I remembered, then, that she'd been hanging round real close to the action this morning, and maybe she had seen a glimpse of it, I couldn't be sure.

'I've got the mask, haven't I?' I said back at her.

'I don't need a mask, me, so don't think that's why I want to join up, just to get a mask and a gun, cause I don't need 'em, well, the gun would be nice, but just for kicks like. Why do you think I don't want prawns? Adverts mean nothing to me.'

Now I knew there were a few people out there that were immune to the messages. The marketing men called them the Blind Consumers, the Unresponsive 6 Per Cent. And I knew that Brendel would love to get her hands on this girl, this Lucy, subject her to a million lab tests, extract all the scattering out of her. I wasn't keen on the procedure, because I'd seen what the extraction did to the immune. It made them go hollow.

'What should I have told my partner about the mask?' I asked her.

'You took it off, didn't you? When you saw the stairway advert. Am I right?'

'No. I mean… I wanted to… it was…'

'It was trying to make you, right?'

'Yes… I started to… started to lift up the mask… I couldn't…'

'How much?'

'What?'

'How much?'

'Just a bit, a sliver, not at all.'

'You haven't told anyone?'

'Look, what is this? Nothing happened.'

'And now you're scared. Scared that they'll take you off the streets. Am I right?'

I looked away. The flotboys had all left now, and another bunch of diners had taken their place. Maybe these were people with real hunger, maybe they were artificially induced, there was no way of telling, not without the proper equipment.

'You've seen it, haven't you?' I said to the girl.

She was quiet for a time, and then she started to cry. Not tears of pain, or anger or frustration even. She nodded,her head, said nothing. Just cried.

They were tears of loss, I'm sure they were.

Later on, when really I should've been home and in bed, I took Lucy out to the commcop station. She got over the tears as soon as she got in the van, and the journey through the streets had her smiling, especially when I turned the siren on, just for her. Anything to take her mind off what was happening, because I wasn't sure about what I was about to do; I had no way of knowing the reactions that I would get. Luckily, Brendel was off duty as well, and the high-security cells weren't her natural habitat anyway. I signed in with the guard down in the cellar, put a tick next to 'Officer in Attendance' and another against 'Family/Acquaintance' and got Lucy to sign against that.

'It's breakfast time, anyway,' said the guard. '1 was going to take this in.' He was holding a plateful of mush and a spoon. 'You want to do it?'

I nodded. Took the plate and spoon - plastic plate, plastic spoon - and then waited as the guard unlocked the door. 'Be careful in there,' he says.

The occupant of cell 945 was asleep as we came in. At least, I thought he was. It was dark, and the faint light from the door fell only on a bulky shape lying on the bed. I put my fingers to my lips, but Lucy was quiet anyway, and too nervous even to breathe out loud. I felt the same, and when I put on the small and well-protected overhead light, and the figure on the bed stirred slightly, it felt as though I was waking the dead. There was a draw of breath at last, and a gasp as Lucy saw what Parker had become.

Become.

Reduced.

Victim to.

It was the first time I'd come to visit. Maybe guilt had kept me away, or just the sense of helplessness. He was tied to the small bed. Strapped down. I hadn't expected this. It must've been bad. Still bad. Shit. I could hardly think of anything at all, and when his eyes opened, and it took him a good long moment to recognize me, well, I was on the edge of turning away.

Parker's head was propped up slightly on a pillow, and this was the only bit of him that could move at all. The bastard only smiles at me, doesn't he? Then he says, 'Muldoon, you came. Is it breakfast time already?' I come forward with the bowl, and I scoop some of the mush out of it with the spoon. I place it against his lips, he opens them, chews the stuff, swallows. After about six of these mouthfuls, he shakes his head for no more please.

'You caught it yet?' he asks.

I shake my head.

'Keep working,' he says. 'Don't worry about me.'

I can't believe how peaceful he sounds.

'Muldoon?'

'Yes?'

'A favour, please.'

'Anything, Parker. Anything.'

'Undo these straps. Just the ones on my arms. Just my right arm will do. I want to eat my own food. I can't stand being fed like a baby. Will you do that?'

I look around the cell. Then at the door. Lucy's standing there, and she nods at me.

'Come on, Muldoon,' says Parker. 'What am I going to do?'

I lean over his body, to get to the strap. It comes loose with a strong tug, and Parker's hand strokes my face, just for a second. 'Thank you,' he says. 'Thank you.' Then he picks up the plastic spoon, and starts to feed himself.

'Who's this?' he asks.

'Her name's Lucy,' I reply.

'I can answer,' says the girl. She comes closer to Parker, but stops a few steps away from him. 'My name is Lucy Bell. I'm ten years old, nearly. Adverts mean nothing to me. And I've seen the stairway.'

Parker stops eating. 'You've seen it?'

'Yes. It came up on a game I was playing. I was alone, luckily. I've seen a million ads in my time, you know what I mean, and nothing gets me frozen. Sometimes I think I'm the unlucky one, because it must be nice to be really affected by something. Usually I just move to another machine when the screen freezes, but this was different I could tell, but I couldn't tell why. Something about the stairway, the way it goes on for ever…'

'Yes,' said Parker. 'For ever…'

'And it made me really sad to watch it going upwards like that, with nobody on it.'

'Yes. Sad.'

It made me put my hand out. I couldn't help myself. I put my hand against the screen. It was cold, the screen, like the machine had broken down. But it was nice, just to let my fingers rest against the steps. I felt like I was walking up it just by touching. And I was so sad, I started to cry. I don't know why, so don't ask me.'

'I know,' said Parker. 'I know.'

'And ever since, this sadness… it won't leave me alone. I feel like I've missed out on something. Inspector Muldoon tells me you were brave, that you saved a flot by giving her your scattermask.'

'No, it wasn't brave. The staircase made me take the mask off. I could see the girl hadn't seen it yet, she was doing her best to look away. I only gave her the mask because I didn't need it any more.'

'Well, I still think it was brave. And I was thinking, maybe I should volunteer for being tested, or something. Because surely there's something inside me, something strange that adverts don't like. And I know all the normal stuff, the spoiler drugs and all that, I know they don't work on this stairway thing. Maybe I should-'

'No.' Parker came up as far as he could. 'I've heard what happens to people when they extract it. It's not good. Not good. You just work with Inspector Muldoon here. Maybe you can find out where the adverts are coming from, eh? Working together?'

'I'd like that. I'd like to be a commcop one day.'

'You will be, kid. You will be.'

I was watching all this from one corner. I wasn't sure what I was aiming at, bringing these two people together. This young girl, barely out of childhood, and having already witnessed and survived what amounted to a murder attempt; and this poor young man, this rookie cop, who had become just another victim. A young man strapped to a bed, and with a plastic spoon in his hand. They seemed happy together, at least. Parker then called over to me, 'You keep Brendel away from this girl, OK?'

'I'm doing that already.'

'Good. Now leave me, please.'

He pushed Lucy towards me, his face suddenly hardened into a frown. 'I'll get you strapped up again,' I said. But Lucy was in the way, and I was walking around her when a sudden choking noise frightened me into stillness. It was Parker. Right in front of me, he had stuck the plastic spoon down his throat. He was jamming it, again and again, deeper and deeper into his mouth. For a good few seconds I couldn't move; the look in his eyes, the sheer pleasure of submission that played there, it rooted me to the spot. Coming out of the freeze, I simultaneously called for the guard, pushed Lucy aside, and rushed over to the bed. With one hand on his face, and the other forcing his mouth open, I tried to make him breathe, to breathe, to breathe again. His right hand had squeezed around my throat. Where the fuck was that guard? Behind me, somewhere behind me, and far, far away, Lucy was screaming.

I got home at eleven, dead beat and frazzled. Lucy was with me. She was showing all the tagging skills of a jetgirl. I shoved her down on the sofa. 'You sleep there,' I said. 'Don't think I'm giving up my bed for you.'

'I don't want to sleep,' she answered. 'It's the daytime. Will Parker be all right?'

'What's all right? We're keeping him alive against his wishes. Is that all right?'

'Maybe we should let him… you know?'

'Don't even think that, right? I mean it, girl.'

I took off my gun and mask, and it seemed like I was taking off my skin, so long had I worn them.

'OK,' said the girl. 'This is a nice place. Wow, you've got a TV.' She said it like she'd never seen one before.

'It's off limits,' I told her. 'And I've got the password.'

'Sure. You live here alone?'

'Yes.'

'No husband?'

'I'm going to bed.'

'No boyfriend? Girlfriend?'

'Bye.'

I carried the mask and gun into my bedroom, stripped naked, fell slowly, blissfully into bed. I don't know what I dreamed of. It had been a long, bad night and morning, and I wish I could leave it at that, the night and the black sleep and the end of the story.

Some things you just can't wish for.

I woke up feeling worse than when I'd gone to sleep. I don't know what time it was. I had to shift through several layers of reality until I got the noise fixed in my head, the sound of a television far off in the distance. At first I thought I was fighting some killer ad along the shining pavilions of a golden arcade, Parker at my side; then I was thinking it was all a dream, and how glad I was at that realization; then I heard the sound of my spoiler gun firing in a long continuous burst of static, and I was back in the arcade once again, but only for a second as I caught the last thread of reality. The noise was coming from the living room, chased by a terrible howling.

The blind sight of my mask was staring at me from where I'd left it hooked to the wall, but the gun was gone. That stupid girl…

I burst the door open, naked.

That stupid fucking girl was just sitting there, right in front of the TV. She had the gun in her hands, and was still firing it at the screen. The howl had gone from her now, replaced by a whimpering cry. I don't know how she broke the password on the set; that girl always was a mystery. And still she fired. Fired and fired at the golden stairway that travelled ever upwards, unrolling on the screen like an escalator to the sky.

Just kept on unrolling, right through everything the girl could hope to spoil it with.

Yeah. I saw it. I was naked, straight from bed. And the mask was still hanging from the hook in the bedroom.

'Don't look! Don't look at it!'

Those were the last words I heard, and they seemed to freeze on the air like drops of ice. Everything froze. Everything froze for me.

'I'm sorry,' said Lucy. 'I tried to…' 'What?'

'Come back to me, please!'

Moving through slow ice that melted, I came alive with my eyes tight on the screen, where a dancing elephant played gaily. There was no sign of the stairway. Everything seemed normal, perfectly normal. Me, a young girl, a television set. Almost a family. There were no feelings inside me, nothing I could touch.

'Oh God, I'm sorry.'

That's fine.'

'I was trying to kill it.'

'I said it's fine.'

I realized that I was naked in front of the kid. Walking slowly back into my room, all I could think about was getting dressed. I even put on the mask, I don't know why. I put it on first, as though it could still protect me. I went back into the living room, took the gun from Lucy's clutched hands, just as my bleeper went off.

'Muldoon, that you?'

'Yes.'

'You heard?'

It was Gumball, and I could hear his voice clearly, no sticky chewing sounds. I knew it was bad then. 'It's Parker?'

'Yeah. He found a way. You'll want the details, right?'

'No. No details.'

'Right. Look… erm… shit, I'm no good at this stuff. I'm sorry. Oh shit. Look, they got a partial trace on the killer trans, it's coming from the Ancoats area. We're doing a house-to-house. You up for it?'

'No. I'm going to the arcade.'

'The arcade? You're not on tonight. Are you all right, Muldoon?'

'Fine. I'm fine. Goodbye.'

I broke the connection, just ripped the bleeper off my belt, wires dangling. Lucy was looking at me scared, as I took up the spoiler gun, reversed it, and with the reinforced butt smashed in the TV's screen, killing that stupid poor innocent elephant dead. 'Come on,' I said, grabbing the girl by a skinny little forearm.

'But where?'

'Shut up.'

I wasn't sure when it would kick in, the suicide impulse. Some cases had taken at least a week for the urge to strike, others felt it in seconds. So time was everything, making me drive like a madwoman, swerving the jeep, a crazy snake through the traffic. I wasn't even sure why I was going to the arcade, but it was my natural hunting ground, after all. I had this intense feeling that I was needed there.

'I thought we were going to the commcop station,' said Lucy.

'Not yet.'

'But miss, what if you…?' She couldn't finish the sentence.

This is between you and me, kid,' I said to her. 'You understand?'

'It's a secret?'

'Yeah. A secret.'

'OK.'

I looked at the girl; she was small and slight, making herself even smaller by pressing back into the seat. Her eyes were blank, fixed on the badly lit road ahead, the arcade that loomed suddenly over us now, all twelve storeys of it almost bending down to receive me.

I drove into the service entrance, through to the underground park. Another commcop car was there, and Gumball was leaning against it. He called out my name, but I just swerved away from him, heading for the up-chute. I could hear his starter engine growl and echo in the hollow space, the screech of tyres.

First storey. Second. Now he'd turned his siren on, as though I should care any more. Third storey, fourth, fifth. I was burning the curves of the building. Six, seven, and Lucy was screaming at me to slow down, to stop, to just please stop now please. I couldn't. The storeys were unfolding, upwards, upwards. Eight, nine, ten. I think I lost Gumball around there. I lost everybody. There was just me and the girl and the stairway leading me on. I had to get to the top. If I could only get to the top, I'd be OK then. Something good was waiting for me there. Eleven, twelve. I jammed the car against a barrier, smashing the bonnet flat. Electrical sparks rose from the engine and the girl was crying now as I bundled her from the vehicle.

'Please! Don't-'

I didn't have anything to say in reply. Grabbing her by both wrists, I dragged her to the metal door that led to the roof. With a kick I released the locking bar, banged it open, pulled the girl through behind me.

Release! I came to, out of some dumb freeze. Felt like I was breathing, for the first time in hours. The whole trip upwards, a superzoom of quick fire. But how fine everything was now, standing on top of Manchester. All this was mine - the black spaces, the glittering lights. Chill breath of air, first spots of rain, the child at my side, barely struggling.

'Let me go,' she said.

'Not yet,' I answered, throwing the gun to the ground. 'I need you still.' And tearing off the scattermask, throwing it down as well. So much spent trash in my life. A glimmer to my right turned me around. There, oh there! The stairway continued, ever upwards, made but of cloud. It was simple, and so clean, and all I needed to do was carry on climbing. There the pleasure awaited me. There it waited, and what else was there to do? With a violence that shocked me, I gathered the girl off her feet, lifted her up into my arms.

'Please. What are you doing? Stop it, please. Please stop it!'

She had a weight, but it was nothing really, a mere shadow. And the words of the shadow were but textures in the night. Only the staircase mattered, only the golden way. I started to walk towards it, towards the edge of the building. I took a few steps, and the girl was struggling, but nothing I couldn't handle. Within moments, out of another freeze, there I was, balanced on the tip of the night. Below me, and all around, the silent, pained city lay so distant it barely shimmered.

'Muldoon!'

A voice from behind, the clang of a metal door.

'Muldoon! It's me, it's Gumball. What's going on?'

'Stay away.'

'It's the stairway!' cried the girl in my arms. 'She's seen the stairway!'

'Come away, Muldoon. Come away from the edge. We're moving in on the trans. Muldoon, we've got a trace.'

'Stay away, Gumball! I have to do this.'

'Put the girl down, then. There's no need to-'

'Shut up!'

I looked ahead. The girl had gone quiet now. It was a cruel and terrible thing to do, and I don't know what passion drove me there. Only the need to challenge, I suppose. I had to set myself up against the advert, see who was strongest. It could make me kill myself, that was easy. Could it make me kill another, an innocent?

Gently, so gently, I put my foot on the first step. The cloud shivered. The girl held on tight to me, and it was all I had left.

The rain hit me.

Hit me cold.

I stepped back. Unfroze. The stairway shivered again, then became a mere gust of wind and the droplets of the rain, vanishing.

I got the girl safely to the floor, where she ran into Gumball's arms. I picked up the gun and the mask.

'OK, Gumball,' I said, moving towards the door. 'Let's go find the bastard.'

BLURBS

I was only five images old when I got my first Blurb. Mummy Wave bought it for me, a present for my first ever press conference. Oh, she was so proud! Her only daughter, the youngest girl in the street to achieve a press-con.

Imagine the headlines. The in-depth analysis: YOUNG GIRL WITNESSES VICIOUS MURDER. ANGRY MOTHER DEMANDS PUBLIC RECOGNITION FOR GRIEVING CHILD. NEW VIRUS INFECTS GAMEWORLD™. AUTHORITIES AT A LOSS TO EXPLAIN THE KILLING.

This is how it happened: Tommy Smart was my best-ever friend, and I miss his tactics dearly. We were playing Corporate Sleazeball™ on the Game-Pimp™. Tommy was so good, he'd already scored seven freebies, five perks, four liquid lunches and two complete takeover bids against me, easy pickings, before the bad thing happened. At first it was just a whirling shadow at the very edge of my game-vision, like a mild intrusion from reality, nothing to be scared about. Perhaps our collected mummies were calling to us, to come eat?

Before I knew quite what was happening, the shadow shape had pounced on Tommy, hard and fast. It splintered his game-play into a million pieces and then sucked his image clean away. I pulled out of the Pimp, double quick and falling…

Into my mother's arms. Back to the Real World™, as Tommy's image drained away to zero before my startled eyes.

Marketing disaster!

Zero-image is a kind of slow death. Tommy didn't really die, he just became a nobody. I couldn't bear to play with him now that he had no flaunt, no flourish, no publicity value. I guess that being privy to his erasure made me too famous, far too quickly. Whatever, the Commcops™ soon came knocking, and I was hauled off to give the press-con. I had to give this tear-stricken speech about what a noble player Tommy Smart had been. The news hounds asked me a ton of questions about the monstrous virus that had wiped Tommy's image off the map. I said it was a twisting whirl of data-smoke, dark and brutal, like a tornado, only more fashionable. I was already learning how to work the media.

The next morning's editions were full of screen-prints of the Twister Wipe ™ virus, and how it was going to kill all the game-pimping children unless caught quickly. Thus was my fifth image-change achieved.

From 'Media Virgin' to 'Grieving Witness', all in one easy move.

Mummy Wave was so pleased with my press-con that she bought me the pet as a reward for being so open to notoriety. Blurb Worms were rare and expensive in those days, but Mummy had sold my story to one of the more downmarket news hounds.

So, my very first Blurb. I called him Scoop™.

Scoop was only three inches long to start with, and a pale cream colour. I kept him safe and warm in a glass tank filled with earth and sawdust. Following the instructions in the user's manual, Scoop's first meal consisted of five metazine articles about my witnessing the evil Twister Wipe at his play, a mating pair of Vids reproducing my press-con, and the complete series of howlings my mother's exclusive had produced from the newshound.

Mummy Wave threw a launch party to celebrate my exploits, inviting all of the street's residents. I allowed Scoop out of his tank for the first time. By now the Blurb had completely swallowed my hot news story. He'd grown an inch in size with the info, and his once-naked body now sported the colours of my new brand image, my very own logo. tina wave enterprises™, ran the letters along his spine. The Blurb Worm sat lovingly on my shoulder, beaming his messages of goodwill:

That was my street name: Tina Wave. Short for Christina Waverly. Just like Blurbs is short for Bio-Logical-Ultra-Robotic-Broadcasting-System. Just like the commcops are really the Communication Police. Because this is the Golden Age of Appearances ™. We don't even call them names, really; rather we have logos, or corporate identities, or else brands or trademarks, copyrighted designs, slogans, tags or communique's.

Nothing is real, and that's how we like it.

Meanwhile, more and more kiddie players were twisted to zero-image. The Wipe-out rampant. The commcops could only patrol the games, like the useless watchdogs that they were, discovering zero, zero everywhere.

My sixth image was 'Lone Vixen'. I retired to my bedroom, and stayed there a whole season, writing my memoirs and formulating my game plan for the public life ahead. Scoop also went into hibernation, enfolding himself in a cocoon of secreted commercials. Everything slowed down; kids worldwide were leaving the Game-Pimp machine alone, egged on by horror-struck parents. Of course, most of the kids really wanted to have a go against the Twister, relishing the image they would gain by killing it. But the parental advice prevailed, and the kids went AWOP: Absent Without Official Play. The Big Pimp's profits took a graph plunge.

Sometimes Tommy Smart came round to see me, but my mother never let him inside the house. I would watch from my upstairs window; his thin, weak, almost transparent body disappearing into the afterglow. But what could I do? After all, he had no commercial value.

By my seventh image-change I had acquired another five Blurbs, including a rather lovely female specimen I called Gossip Monger™. My latest image was 'Petulant Brat', and the Blurbs actively promoted that labelling throughout the street. Scoop had meanwhile outgrown his wormhood; he emerged triumphant from his shell, his new wings fluttering madly to dry themselves. Two hours later he was airborne. Scoop became a Flier™, reproducing my image joyfully over the entire village.

By the time I was ten images old (crazy alien kid on planet earth by mistake!) I had a hundred or so Blurbs flying around the whole city, and a hundred more waiting to hatch their messages from cocoons. Mummy Wave didn't need to buy the worms any more. Following Scoop's courtship and mating with Gossip - and the birth of the first of their larvae, Blabbermouth™ - the other Blurbs were soon hard at it, making their own baby adverts. But Scoop was the official King of Blurbs™, and I was the Queen of Publicity™. The famous Tina Wave, the young girl behind the release of winged logos. I should have realized the problem: I was becoming famous for being famous, not for actually perpetrating any new major stories. I was making a handsome profit from my marketing business, thank you, but nothing stupendous had happened to me in the last few months. I was becoming a media ghost, fed by past glories only.

I really should have realized.

Image number eleven: 'Sullen Bitch-Kid'. I had a thousand or so Blurb Fliers surrounding my body by then, thanks to Mummy's desperate attempts to over-extend my public life. She had started to feed the Blurbs with Junk Mail™. Designed by the engimologists, Junk Mail was a nasty subscription hormone that made the adverts go sex mad. They birthed a buzzing halo wave of publicity. They worked as one, this new swarm of logos, arranging their bodies into a collective display. Hanging over the city like a cloud of desire.

It seemed that the whole world must know about my exploits; but really, it was only publicity about publicity. Self-replication of the Image, which is a kind of inbreeding. The Blurb Worm manual was very strict on this point: 'Lack of cross-pollination can lead to mutated images.' You bet! My twelfth image was 'Psychotic Juvenile!' And the Blurbs were becoming ever more hungry: 'Info! More info!' they buzzed in ragged formation. 'Feed us! Feed us major stories!'

Myself and my images were becoming cliched and malformed, thanks to the limited meme-pool. 'Do something, Tina!' cried Mummy Wave from her sunken armchair. She was slowly dying from the lack of reflected fame.

Shrinking.

By this time, a lot of the other kids had Blurbs of their own, and the pitched battles between the various publicity campaigns left the streets covered in media corpses. My poor army suffered dearly for its victories. I found my beloved Scoop, and his wife, Gossip, lying dead in the street, and their firstborn son, Blabbermouth, crying all over the remains. I buried the two press warriors in a grave of obituary columns. Here lie Scoop and Gossip. Long may they propagate.

The Blurb Wars gained me some blessed new publicity, but pretty soon that died away, taking Mummy Wave to the very edge of zero-image: 'Do something drastic and stupendous, Tina! Save the family's brand identity! Save the logo!'

Mummy met her deadline. So sad.

A few days ago I heard that Tommy Smart's body had been found. He'd killed himself, hanging his emptiness from a street lamp. One final streetvert, his second death. No life beyond the image.

The Blurb Wars, the deaths of Scoop and Gossip and Tommy Smart, oh yes, and of Mummy Wave: these events all raised my public profile slightly. I came to realize that death was the ultimate advertisement.

So now, I prepare my final press campaign. My final image. Believe me, you will hear about it. Believe me you will.

All my Blurbs will help me.

DUB BLURBS

Exclusive! Tonight, in a death-pool beaming machine, desire tactics were cloud-swallowed. In-depth girl analysis revealed images of naked juvenile wave. Witnesses saw meme swarms pimp from reality. Imagine liquid killing. Murdering fashion!

Public bought child user's virus, injecting recognition. Pollination inbreeding mutated loophole desire, causing ultimate trademark feedback. Meta-corporate game howl-ings take over our collected shadowzine loss. Sunken, the colours reflected fame-value deadline. Emptiness street.

'Eat sleaze!' gossips cliche-incorporated larva mouth. Manual blabbervert feeds vision game, shapes a million hot-data smoke-map designs. Virgin brand-plunge logical, given transparent fashion for hormone buzzing. Cops imagine flaunt-worms flourish.

Discovering zero tornado, everywhere system-sex hounds wiped the whirl. 'Reproducing is nasty,' robotic marketing specimen cocooned at news disaster. Erasure campaigns labelled info too female. 'Dark brutal naked little logo!' messaged public-life junk alien. 'Too much worm-hood propagates downmarket mating.'

Comm-twister wings broadcasting to splintered scoop vid: 'Publicity, sell your ultra!'

Logo bio death. Falling media slogans secreted zero-media. A nobody image. Malformed afterglow infected final shadow. Body sported commercials; copyrighted slow graph disappearing down to sub-subzero. Hatches new instructions: infection's courtship, unfolding.

Meanwhile, world halo-shrinking conference editions change of sucked ghost.

TWEEDLES

The company flew me back to England for retraining, my first visit in years and, as always, coming back made me long to get away again. But what the hell, it was Christmas, and the guilt finally got the better of me. So I'd got the train up to Manchester. Christ, the place reeked. 'Remember me?' I asked my mother. 'Here, have some perfume.' She sniffed at the gift, like it was alien drool. We made some awkward conversation, until she astonished me with the news that Oswald Peel was still living in the same house down the street, still living with his parents. 'But the guy's my age,' I said. 'What's he doing living at home?'

'You should visit him,' my mother replied. 'He's working for the weather.'

So Christmas morning found me calling round at the big old house. His father didn't recognize me at first, until I nudged his memory. 'It's Billy, Mr Peel. You remember? Billy Sunset, from down the road? I've come to see Oswald.'

The mother was frozen in brandy, trapped by the television, smiling away at the twenty-four-hour weather channel. They were predicting snow. 'Oswald's in his room,' the father said. 'Shall I call him down?'

'No, no. I'll go up.'

The bedroom was dark, the curtains drawn against daylight. The latest telescope was peeking through the curtains, fixed upon some distant, unseen star, no doubt. Oswald was sitting on his bed, reading a book. It could have been years ago. 'Hello Ozzie,' I said. 'Happy Christmas. Look, I've brought you a present. Take a sniff. How you doing?'

He put the book down, got up from the bed.

The first thing I noticed was how well he was looking, for his age. I mean, I've lost a little hair myself, and grown A stomach in the passing years, but Ozzie was hirsute and trim-lined. The bastard, I thought, it shouldn't be allowed.

'Who are you?' A voice from the past.

'It's Billy. Remember?'

'Billy Sunset?'

'That's right. I've brought you some aftershave. It's what I do these days. I sell smells. What are you up to? I hear you're a meteorologist.'

'Yes, for the television.'

That's brilliant.'

'You think so?'

Well no, actually. I would have thought Oswald worth much more than that. But I didn't want to mention such things. Instead I said something even more stupid:

'I was sorry to hear about Junior. Do you hear from him?'

Oswald just looked at me. Then he moved to the telescope.

It was a bad thing to say, of course, about Junior I mean, but the years of selling have frozen me solid, I suppose, especially in the heart. And I was dragged backwards to another Christmas morning, ages ago, when I wasn't yet so cold.

Ozzie was the neighbourhood kid you just had to hate. I mean, there was the stupid name to start with, and the fact that he somehow managed to have two parents, which was one more than any other kids on the street could ever manage. And they were posh and rich of course, these parents, with two incomes and a nice house and two vintage cars, never mind the pedigree dogs and the goddamn loving relationship, whatever that was. Also, he received every little thing he could ever desire, this spoilt little brat, which was every little thing more than I could hope for. The latest model kit, the gun that saved the world, a telescope, pointed towards the stars.

Really, I should've hated his guts to the toyshop and back, but somehow I fell half in love with him, much to the downmarket taunts of my other friends. I was nine, Oswald ten, and we wasted some time together, talking about the moonshot and the effect it might have upon the atmosphere, and fantasizing about what presents we would get for Christmas. I was pinning my hopes on a new football, or some such small-fry dream, compared to Oswald demanding the latest model Tweedle Boy from Santa.

I laughed at him, of course, because Tweedle dolls were the toy of choice that Xmas, ever since the Only Child Law had been passed, and how could even his well-to-do parents afford such a luxury? But sure enough, that week one of the antique cars vanished, likewise one of the pedigree dogs, both of them sold to the same collector of oddities. Two days later Oswald was taken into hospital.

I didn't get to see him until Christmas morning, when I paid a call to show off my new Air UK football, my mother having also made a few sacrifices. 'Fancy a game, Ozzie?' I asked, but he claimed he was too weak still from his operation. 'What? You mean it's really happened?' I was dumbfounded. 'You've really gone through with it? Didn't it hurt?' I was shuddering to imagine my own bone marrow being excavated.

'Nothing much,' he answered, quite slowly. 'It's only a little DNA, after all, and I've got lots to spare.' Together we went up to his bedroom, where his number one present was sleeping in a specially designed cot. It was the first time I'd ever seen a Tweedle, for real I mean, not on television. I must admit I was disappointed at first glance, mainly because the adverts had painted the Tweedles as these marvellous objects, exact copies of their owners. But this sleeping toy was only about a foot long, rather chubby and quite blank in the face, hair and eyes, rather like a blindworm. 'But it looks nothing like you, Ozzie,' I said.

'Give him time.' Ozzie picked up the doll from its bed. 'He's called Junior, by the way. He's my younger brother.' The poor thing stirred in his arms, and started to gurgle.

Well, the holidays were soon over, and we all went back to school. Oswald turned up five days late for the new term, clutching his Tweedle close to his chest. He sat the doll on his desk during every lesson, where it got some looks of course, and all those kid jokes that cover jealousy. And maybe you're thinking, what's a ten-year-old boy want a doll for anyway? The thing is, Tweedles could be monsters, if you wanted them to be. Some tough tried to steal it off Ozzie once; maybe the kid hadn't heard about the security devices, or was just too stupid to care. Whatever, there was an almighty flash of light, a shower of sparks, and a scream from the tough. I tell you, he wouldn't be playing the guitar for a living.

Oswald turned eleven, passed all his exams with ease, and went on to high school. He dragged the Tweedle along with him, which was over two feet tall by now, with a twisted reflection of its owner's face. The thing could even talk a little, a mutated impression. I followed along as best I could, giving up the football to concentrate on learning. But, you know, Oswald became reclusive round about then, preferring the company of his Tweedle I suppose, rather than real people. I must admit I was jealous, to see Oswald and Junior growing up together like that, growing closer. The thing had these special growth hormones, and pretty soon it was catching up with him. I suppose other kids had the dolls, but they weren't hanging out together all the time, you know? Not like Ozzie and his brother.

By the age of sixteen the two of them were more or less the same size, and quite inseparable. Oswald did brilliantly in the exams of course, getting into the University of Manchester, no problem, studying physics and astronomy. And the better he did, the worse I got. Sixteen found me leaving school too early, with a couple of bad results. I landed this job with a local menswear shop, the start of my glorious life in sales. Anyway, it gave me the money, and the freedom, and pretty soon I had enough to rent my own place. I was itching to get that smalltown stench out of my veins. It didn't take long. A year later I was taken on as an apprentice with a big London firm, selling the smells. I went round to Ozzie's, to say goodbye. Yeah, he was still living at home, despite the charms of the student life. No girlfriends or anything, not for Ozzie. Not for Ozzie and Junior.

I hadn't seen them for a while. Ozzie opened the door to me, said hello, gave me his congratulations, all that, gave me a hug, just about the first we'd ever managed. I don't know, there was something about the lad; maybe the skin was too cold, or else too warm. I can't remember exactly. Just something, you know. And then I felt the crackle, electricity under the skin. I pulled away from his clutches, just as another Oswald came up behind this one.

Even I could no longer tell them apart.

The current was still running through my fingers as I followed them both into the house. Their mother was all over the two of them, already mashed on the brandy, as though she had actually given birth to twins. If anything, she seemed to have more affection for Junior than her real son. And why not?. The Tweedle was more handsome than the original. The poor lost father, meanwhile, he just looked on with a spooked-out expression, as though there was nothing he could do about it.

I got out of there as soon as I could. And carried on getting away, all the way to London. On the train I covered myself with aftershave, masking the smells of home.

And that was my exit.

For a couple of years I kept in touch with mother, just by answering a few of the many letters that followed me around the country. Occasionally she would have news of Ozzie, and even more about Junior, but nothing good. It seems the brother was turning out bad, causing trouble, getting into fights, running wild. I'd heard rumours that some of them got like that, as they grew older. Some kind of bad reaction to being second best. The last I heard, the Tweedle had taken off. Climes unknown.

I hope he found what he was looking for. That's all I could think, and that Oswald didn't take the desertion too badly.

Everything comes around. And here was my answer. A lonely, forty-year-old man still living in his parents' home; days and days in a darkened room, looking through a telescope.

'Come on, Ozzie,' I said. 'Speak to me, please. You must still think about Junior.'

'Nothing much,' he answered.

His glazed expression was still indented with the shape of the telescope's eyepiece, the reflection of a star. Distant objects were more appealing, obviously. And then I thought, what's he doing looking through that thing, middle of the morning? There's no stars out now. What's to see? I put my eye to it. A circle opened up, on a house across the way. A bedroom window. A half-dressed woman was walking across the vision.

There was a noise behind me, a dry choking sound; and then a hand being placed very gently upon my shoulder.

I felt the crackle.

PRODUCT RECALL - MARILYN MONROE

The Celeborg Company has discovered a slight fault with their Marilyn Monroe 729 model. The product concerned is stamped CC729-45X on the frame, and is painted Hollywood Pink. These models should be returned immediately to the nearest point of supply.

Celeborg pride themselves on their commitment to service. We present the following information to assure our loyal customers of this commitment, and to dispel any rumours that may be circulating in the press or elsewhere.

A virus has infected Marilyn Monroe.

We believe this to be the first of its kind: a parasite that lives off biotechnology. It appears to have entered our manufacturing process through an infected batch of RoboVaz, which was unfortunately applied to a small number of models. Usually the virus lives and breeds within the oil, in no way affecting the excellent performance of the host. It now appears that a new strain of the virus has evolved, which Can move around the models at will, living not only within the oil but also in the special paint used on the latest Marilyn Monroes. Gradually the voracious appetite of the intruder will eat away at the celebrity. There is a slight risk that under certain circumstances this model may collapse whilst in use, putting the consumer at risk.

For this reason we are recalling all the Marilyn Monroes, and would ask our customers to keep these models away from other celebrities, to prevent cross-infection. Our JFK and Bugs Bunny models are particularly susceptible to this danger. There is no truth in the rumour that the virus is in a symbiotic relationship with the model. It does not make the celebrity more charismatic.

A new 'guaranteed pure' Marilyn Monroe will be supplied, free of all charges.

Please make love safely.

XTROVURT

Mr Alan Cooder, a salesman specializing in children's accessories, was dismayed to find upon arrival that the airline company had managed to lose his baggage somewhere between Manchester and New York. He still had with him a small briefcase that contained his passport, catalogues and credit cards, and the clothes he had lost could easily be replaced. Unfortunately the missing suitcase had also contained his feed supply.

He had argued with the baggage check in Manchester that he could not possibly travel without feeding himself; only to be reminded of the recent air crash in Germany, whose cause had been traced to 'one of his kind' eating during a flight. Apparently the necessary act had interfered with the aircraft's control systems. He had been told that his supply would have to travel in the hold and that he should stock up now, while in England, with enough energy to get him over the Atlantic. Reluctantly he had done just that, visiting the Gents to do so, because he was still ashamed of feeding himself in public.

Now he found himself alone in a city he had never visited before, and already his last meal was wearing off. He could feel himself slowing down, even as the taxicab dropped him at his pre-booked hotel. His room was small, hot, and a playground for cockroaches. They never mentioned insects in the guidebook, and he shivered at the sight. Trying his best to avoid them, his first act was to cover all the mirrors with the bath towels, turning his gaze aside whilst doing so.

Alan Cooder never could stand the sight of himself when hungry.

Really, he should be preparing for his first appointment; instead he went down to the registration desk and asked for the nearest reliable supplier, hating the look of distaste the clerk gave him. He was informed that 'the best place for such things is right here on Times Square. A general store. Walking distance.'

'Only be careful, sir,' the clerk added with a sneer, 'there's some nasties around.'

Indeed. It seemed that all the world's ugliness was concentrated in this small area. Only a few steps into the glare and bustle brought him offers for pink and wet dreams, the street sellers waving their feathers at him like magic rattles. An old black guy was slumped against a wall, a feather stuck in his mouth and his body twitching with whatever cheap, dirty dream he was flying. Walking fast and keeping his head down, Alan Cooder bought a pair of cheap sunglasses and a pocket map from a stall, and then tried to follow the clerk's directions. The map must have been printed upside down, because within fifteen minutes he was lost in the maze. It was midday, the heat packed tight between the buildings. He checked his watch, only to find he'd forgotten to adjust it to the new time zone. His eyes felt like pinpricks, his stomach aching with need, and no sign of a specialist shop or even a general store. Retracing his steps in a fever, he found himself somewhere else entirely, a small thin street without name or number, overshadowed by crumbling facades and filled with the smell of overused flesh.

It was at the end of this street that Alan Cooder found a dingy little shop calling itself slick city. Underneath the dark, cracked neon a smaller sign, hand-painted: 'You want it, we got it. No high too far.' Underneath that, a scrawled sticker: 'Robos, no problemo'.

Welcome sight, even if Cooder hated the word Robo, even if the shop's window was covered in black paint and the door marked, 'Strictly Adults Only! No browsing!' He went inside.

The shop was small, more like a passageway really, with the two walls filled floor to ceiling with boxed-up feathers, a counter at the far end with a large woman squeezed behind it. There were two other customers, carefully avoiding each other and the new arrival. Cooder looked around for a second only, his nostrils clogged with the thick smell wafting from the merchandise, before heading for the counter.

'What is it?' asked the woman, wiping her brow with a rag.

'Do you have anything… anything for…' He hesitated, English and ashamed, despite his desperate need.

'Aw! Love the accent, mister!' the woman squealed. 'English, so sexy.' She laughed, ripples of her flesh hanging over the counter. Her blouse was too small, stretched to the last button over her gross stomach. Cooder couldn't bear to look at it, knowing full well already what lay behind there.

'Hey, buddy!' the woman shouted over Cooder's shoulder. 'Read the fucking sign!'

Cooder turned. One of the other customers had taken a feather out of its box, and was just about to stick it in his mouth. Above him a printed notice read: you wanna suck, pay the bucks! The customer placed the feather back on the shelf and quickly left the shop.

The woman turned her attention back to Cooder. 'You're one of us, mister,' she said. 'I can always tell. And… aw! You're in a bad way! I know that smell. Here, let me show you what we've got.'

Showing was just pointing, because the woman seemed to be wedged in place. Cooder followed her fingers over to where a section of wall was marked out as being for 'Robots Only!' Hundreds of feathers in boxes. He'd never seen so many kinds before, none of them familiar, none of them AutoBuzz, his usual brand. The boxes were illustrated; a sickening display of illegal dreams, overwhelming.

'You after something special, mister?' the woman called out, and Cooder, embarrassed, walked quickly back to the counter.

'I just want to eat,' he mumbled. 'None of this…' gesturing to the shelves.

'You don't want a pink one?'

'No. I don't… I mean, I never… I just want to eat, please.'

'You want a purple?'

Cooder nodded. 'I want some AutoBuzz, do you have it?'

'Is that English?'

'Yes.'

The woman made a smacking sound with her lips. 'Can't get hold of it, love nor money. We got this in last week.' She pulled a box from under the counter. The box was plain white, with the word xtrovurt stamped across it. Cooder picked it up. There were no other words on the package: no instructions, no recommended dosage, no country of origin or even manufacturer's name.

'Xtrovurt,' he said, more to himself. 'I've never heard of it.'

'It's nice. Take a look.'

Cooder opened the lid. Inside lay at least a dozen purple feathers. He held one up to the smoky light. 'It's not pure.'

'Course it's pure. We don't sell anything but.'

'No, look - it's got some pink in it.'

'Let me see? Nah, that's just a design feature. Look, mister, I've been using the stuff for the past week. No problemo. Special promotion, isn't it? Sample stocks, pre-market. Good price, too. Cost a packet in Macey's. You want some? Try some here. We've got a back room. Private booth.'

'No, no. Thank you. I'll take it. One, that is. I'll take one. How much?'

He'd brought out a credit card, but the woman looked at it as though he'd slapped something dead on the counter. In the end he'd paid cash for it, a fair sum, but he was desperate to get out of the shop by now, keen to get air, clean air, his hotel room, get the stuff inside him. His stomach felt like it was caving inwards.

Strangely, once out on the street, with the single feather tucked safely in his briefcase, he felt better already. A young girl (think she was young, think she was a girl) called out to him, 'Hey, Robo! You want some licky licky?' but he hurried on, no trouble. No trouble finding his way back, and no trouble seeing a general store he could hardly have missed the first time, close to his hotel. In this clean, well-appointed place he found a whole rack of AutoBuzz, at a price less than half of what he'd just spent. He bought six completely pure feathers, all the deep rich purple he had grown to love. And back at his hotel, a message saying the airline had found his missing case, it was being sent over by a courier.

Suddenly, the trip was happening. He would ring his first appointment, excuse his lateness, but first…

Cooder closed the curtains, turned on a bedside light. Using only this light, shining through the bathroom door, he stood by the sink. He found the courtesy jar of BodyVaz, opened it up in readiness. He pulled the towel from the mirror above the sink. His briefcase was open, resting on the closed toilet seat. A cockroach was crawling across the floor; Cooder moved aside to let it pass. From the case he pulled one of the best-looking AutoBuzz feathers, its fine covering of powder gently clouding the air. Looking in the mirror, he started to unbutton his shirt. Just before the last button was popped free, he looked again at the feather he had chosen, and then at the briefcase.

The Xtrovurt feather was lying there, nestled among the others, the usual, the normal, the everyday affairs that governed his life. The strange feather that sparkled with traces of pink from the bed of purple. He picked it up, looked at it more closely.

What was he thinking of? This lonely salesman, a man without adventures, holding such a thing in his hands.

Alan Cooder: Autogen No. 279954XY. The truth spelled out on his passport.

How he hated the word 'robot'. He wasn't a robot. People were so cruel, did they think it was easy, having to feed yourself dreams every single day, just to pass as human? They should try it. No wonder Autogens stuck together. Maybe later that night he would find a club, a meeting place; surely New York of all places was home to thousands, if you knew where to find them. He had read stories in Autogen Monthly amp; Lifestyle Choice.

Goaded by this image of the Land of the Free, Alan Cooder did something he had never done before: he took a chance, a small chance. He smoothed a handful of Vaz grease on to the Xtrovurt feather, and then opened his shirt fully, exposing his abdomen.

The mouth was there, waiting. It gasped.

It was funny, he never could feel it was a part of him, despite the fact he had been hatched with it there, the mouth in his stomach. The pair of thick red lips that parted now to be fed, the barely wet tongue that licked and tickled, tickled and licked, longing for food.

A woman's mouth.

Cooder rubbed some Vaz on the dry lips, and then slowly pushed the purple and pink feather into his abdomen. The lips closed around it, taking it deep, sucking deep to get every last drop of the dream.

Cooder fed himself.

He woke up five hours later, sprawled out on the little bed, with a bloated erection. A roach was crawling over his bare chest. He crushed it, quite easily, between finger and thumb. He pulled the used-up feather from his stomach. The deep purple of the flights had drained away to a dull cream. Empty. Swallowed. Pausing only to button up his shirt and throw on his jacket, Cooder left the room.

At the registration desk the clerk tried to get his attention, saying something about a suitcase and a telephone message. Cooder ignored him, stepped out into the New York night, flashes of the dream still racing through his body. Visions of a female of the species, a lovely man's mouth in a soft, hungry stomach, where they kissed and nibbled and stuck their tongues in each other's bellies for hours on end.

The city cried beautiful around him, swirling with life and noisy colour.

A young couple were hailing a taxi; Cooder stepped in front of them, climbed aboard the yellow vehicle. 'Where to, bud?' asked the driver.

'Downtown,' said Cooder, 'where the Robos play.'

'Uh-huh. Would that be female robos, or would that be male robos?'

'Whatever.'

'Oh my. Hang on tight, buddy.'

THE PERFUMED MACHINE

By their very nature Autogens are doomed to a pathological shyness bordering on a terror of the purely human. This has led them to form into various cabals and half-hidden sects, and to make their homes in self-made ghettos, most famously 'Toytown' in Manchester, England, where the first of their kind was created.

It is in this strange, quasi-suburban theme village that the esteemed Professor Kalk made his best-selling study of the autogenetic reproductive system, The Perfumed Machine. That the Autogens themselves hate the word 'machine', when applied to their own bodies (as they do any word - robot, automaton, artificial being, biomechanical - that reminds them of their invention) never seems to have worried Kalk or his many readers. Also, the fact that he actually posed as an Autogen in order to research his work, whilst adding intensely to his promotional image, could not fail to stir the subjects of said research into a vengeful anger. Certainly, the sentence that most incited them - 'autogens are nothing more than a laboratory experiment gone wrong' - can be seen as fatally provocative.

But it is not the purpose of this short treatise to excuse murder, or to promote the rights of autogenetic citizens; rather, it is to set the record straight once and for all regarding the sexual habits of the so-called 'perfumed machines'.

Autogens, whilst vigorously denying their machinehood, have never claimed full humanity; their only goal, it seems, is to be seen as a separate and distinct species, and to claim the rights appertaining to any such group. It must be remembered that the crime rate for their species is far below that of the purely human, and that the National Council for Autogenetic Affairs has publicly chastised the perpetrators of Professor Kalk's death.

Be that as it may, we can only imagine the surprise of the murderers when they discovered that Dr Chandra Kalk was not in fact an impostor, but a fully formed autogenetic male! If the killers had seen the mouth in Kalk's stomach prior to their vicious act, perhaps they would have shown mercy. We shall never know.

The twisted logic that led the professor to pretend to be human for so many years has been the subject of much debate. It may well be that only by doing so could he overcome the prejudice that allows only 5 per cent of Autogens to enter the scientific community, despite their natural ability in that area. Perhaps some other factors, psychological for instance (from which Autogens are known to suffer more than most), can be blamed for his dissemblance. Whatever, it certainly explains his success at pretending to be one of their kind during his research!

Did he, I wonder, try to 'be himself' at the final moment? Or was the professor so lost in the layers of disguise by then that he could not find his way out in time?

The final pretence concerns his work itself. The Perfumed Machine, a book which established in the public's mind the exotic lifestyle of the Autogens, has now been shown to be a tapestry of lies.

Was this, finally, the cause of the murderous revenge? That Kalk had made a vast fortune out of nothing more than his own twisted imagination?

Here then, are the facts: Autogens are capable of three different kinds of reproductive activity, each of which leads to a different kind of offspring. The first (which Kalk freely admitted to) is a rudimentary copy of the human sexual practice, where a male and a female between them create a child. Following the natural process, this baby receives half its genes from one parent, half from the other. This technique is used in times of affluence, when prospects allow for the nurturing of a long childhood.

The second type of reproduction (which Kalk merely hinted at) is used more in times of slow economic growth. This is the autogenetic process in its purest form. The female of the species reproduces without the need of the male. This produces a child more or less identical to the parent, one who very quickly (a matter of four years or less) grows to full maturity. These offspring are always female, and can be 'stacked up' in the womb; that is, a foetus may already have a foetus of its own inside it, and so on, down to an undiscovered break-off point.

The final type of reproduction (of which Kalk said nothing) is concerned with the so-called stomach-mouths in relation to which the Autogens suffer their greatest prejudice. It seems that the purely human will always be disgusted by this aspect of autogenetic physiology, and not without reason. The female has a male mouth in her stomach, the male a female one. Each mouth has a tongue, sometimes known to be over eight inches long, and a rudimentary set of teeth. Kalk claimed that the act of 'kissing stomachs' is merely an intimate greeting, or else a form of foreplay. It is now known to be the most desired and most difficult of the reproductive methods.

The female's stomach-tongue is placed within the male's stomach-mouth. It is believed that the female's 'sperm' is present in her saliva. It is the male that becomes pregnant. A small egg is formed in the stomach, which becomes a kind of male womb for the process. The egg is ejected, again by use of the stomach-tongue, and then taken over by the female, who warms and protects it (outside the body) until the hatching takes place. This can take up to two years. The resulting baby is always male, and takes fully thirty-five years to reach puberty.

This strange sexual process has a 98 per cent failure rate. Of those successfully conceived, many die within the egg. Those managing to be born are always weak and sickly; many more die before becoming fully grown. For these reasons the 'hatched' are considered more precious than the other two kinds of Autogen. Their very existence can bring about intense feelings of jealousy within the more 'normal' children. The hatched often become figures of power and authority, despite the fact that they are the most prone to psychological problems. Then again, they often become criminals or outcasts.

There now seems little doubt that Professor Kalk was such a child.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE USE OF

The following incomplete document (from the Museum of Fragments) has been provisionally dated as belonging to the early twenty-first century. Although various theories have been put forward regarding the nature of the 'device' referred to, none of them has yet gained universal credence.

(text begins)

1c. The device is not to be used by children under the age of fourteen, or adults over the age of thirty-nine.

2b. If device is to be handheld, click button B to 'portable'.

2e. If device is to be shared, activate 'protection' mode.

3a. Device to be used only four times a day, unless authorization granted.

3b. Any one session not to exceed sixty minutes, or the onset of auto-shutdown by device, whichever duration is the shorter.

3c. Do not attempt to use device after auto-shutdown, unless a period of at least thirty minutes has passed.

4d. Special dispensation required for use of device in public place.

5b. In case of such breakdown (see 5a), owner of device completely to blame.

5c. In case of legitimate breakdown, device should be removed from body, and returned to point of purchase.

5d. Under no circumstances should corrupted device be left attached to body.

6a. Under no circumstances is device to be left unattended during 'dispersal' procedure.

7c. Unprotected dispersal can lead to infection of receptacle.

(text ends)