A bulky black helicopter thundered low overhead, the sound washing out Denise's voice. The children leaped to their feet and charged out from under the parasols to watch the alien warcraft pollute their sky. It streaked away toward the Dawe District, heavy, menacing guns sliding out of its nose cavities with smooth urgency that was almost a sexual motion.

Denise followed them out into the sunlight, watching hot fumes spilling from the invader's gill-like turbine baffles as it filled the air with its battle cry. She took hold of Wallace's and Melanie's hands as the children looked uncertainly from the racing machine back to her. "They won't sell many ice creams at that speed, will they?" She chuckled. The children broke into ebullient giggles, laughing and pulling faces at the retreating horror. "Come along then." She swung the hands high, allowing Melanie to twirl below her arm. "I've a tale to finish. We're almost done for today, and the nasties aren't going to spoil our fun, are they?"

"No," they all yelled. Getting back under the parasols became a race, with lots of jostling to be at the front. Denise let go of Melanie and Wallace, allowing them to sit at her feet with exaggerated self-importance.

"Miss, did the Ring Empire have people like Zantiu-Braun?" Jedzella asked.

Denise glanced around at the worried faces. "No," she assured them. "There were people who were bad, sometimes evil. But the laws of the Ring Empire were strong, and the police clever and vigilant. Nothing like Zantiu-Braun and this invasion could ever happen there."

Edmund turned round to his classmates and went Phew, wiping his hand across his brow. The children smiled again, content that the Ring Empire remained sacrosanct.

Denise hopped off the tram at its third stop along Corgan Street, several hundred meters behind the Skin platoon. She knew where they were without having to apply her d-written systems to the datapool. The noise of ragged voices keyed her in.

KillBoy's in the driving seat

Crash hit! Crash hit!

KillBoy's seen the meat

Crash hit! Crash hit!

Skins are in the bodybag

Crash hit! Crash hit!

She smiled behind her sunglasses. KillBoy wasn't something she could take credit for: some nameless poolpoet had invented him on landing day after the sniper shot. But he was rapidly becoming one of the cause's biggest assets.

It was youths who were doing most of the chanting. Respectable, responsible adults who would normally call for the police the moment two teenagers started drinking beer on the street were nodding silent encouragement as they walked along the pavement.

This was why she was here, to gauge the mood of the average Memu Bay inhabitant. It wasn't something she could determine from editorials and reports out of the datapool. Judging by this response, her fellow citizens had a vicious streak she wouldn't have necessarily assigned to the descendants of right-on liberals. Mocking people whose friend and colleague had just suffered a horrifying accident was a taboo she hadn't expected to be broken. It left her feeling just a little uncomfortable.

She caught up with the platoon, hanging around on the edge of the crowd that was following them, curious about their reaction. Her d-written neural cells intercepted their communication link, giving her full sound and vision intimacy. They were largely ignoring the chants and abuse hurled at them, busy making private unheard jokes about members of the crowd. Boyishly obscene observations about the girls (including her) were followed up by zooming in on the appropriate section of anatomy with their helmet sensors; sexual derision about the males and their imagined deformities concealed by strange folds in their trouser fabric. Quite the little counterpoint and morale booster.

The platoon crossed into a wide concreted area around the base of a big apartment block, which the local kids used for their games. A dozen or so skinny boys just into their teens were kicking a soccer ball about. Their game trickled to a desultory halt as they turned to stare at the invaders.

Most of the crowd began to turn back, heading for the shops and bars and haunts along the street, probably intimidated by the open space. Denise slouched on the corner by a shop, watching the platoon march away. Following them here would make her too visible; besides, she'd learned what she needed.

Suddenly the soccer ball was powering through the air. It almost hit one of the Skins, the sergeant himself no less, but he dodged back. Denise blinked as his foot shot out, stopping the ball in midflight. His toe nudged it about; then it was arching up. His knee came up underneath and bounced it twice; then he kicked it gently to another Skin. They started passing it to each other.

The boys who'd been playing were now all standing sneering, striking a variety of stubborn hands-on-hips poses designed to show how tough and unintimidated they were.

"Give us the ball back!" one shouted. He was the tallest, all gangly limbs and a thick beret of curly black hair.

"Sure," the sergeant said.

The kid took a half pace back in surprise at hearing the modestly amplified voice. Then the Skin was walking toward him, nudging the ball along in front. He got right up to the kid, who made the mistake of going for the ball. The sergeant neatly flicked it round him, and kept on going to the next youth. Another attempted tackle, another failure. The sergeant was picking up speed, and the other kids flocked toward him for their own moment of victory. He got around another three, then kicked the ball over their heads. It was a perfect arc that placed the ball at the feet of another Skin. He kicked it firmly, and it smacked against the wall between the two fading white lines that marked out the goal.

The sergeant held his arms high. "Easy."

"Yeah?" the tallest kid scoffed. "You're in Skin, asshole. Come out and try that against us."

There was a moment's pause, and the sergeant's Skin split open down his neck. The tall kid took a startled half pace backward as the head wriggled free of the split. His face and hair were shiny with a pale-blue gel, but he was still smiling.

Denise's hand flew to her mouth, smothering her gasp of surprise. The shock had overridden all her cause-dedicated calm. It was him. Him!

"Skin suits give us strength," Lawrence said cheerfully, "not skill. Still, not to worry. Some of you have a smattering of talent. Twenty years' time, you might come up to our level."

"Fuck off!" the kid cried. "You bastards would just shoot us if we didn't let you win."

"You think so? Over a soccer game?"