"I'm looking at you," said Brid, her dark eyes brooding on Mandy.

Mandy ignored her, face hid behind the mag. "We going down the Bottle, Bee?" she asked.

"That's right, babes. Straight down the Bottle."

"We're going to visit Tristan?"

"We are."

"After English Voodoo?" Mandy was playing on all the information she had over Bridget.

"That's right, babes."

"I found out about Icarus Wing," said Mandy, proud as a pimp.

"This is my van, bitch." The Brid spat, once, and then carried on; "Get the fuck out!"

"Pardon me," replied Mandy, lowering the Game Cat, "but the vehicle is moving at quite a pace."

"I know what you're thinking."

Mandy looked nervous, just for a moment. Her eyes flicked over to the Beetle, and back to Brid. Brid had her best smoky stare on. "It's good you know, then," said Mandy, braving the stare. "Beetle feels the same." The Beetle said nothing. New girl had everything to learn about the man. "Maybe now you'll leave us alone." A groove of pain appeared across Mandy's brow. That's how it started. Beads of sweat running down her face. Her mouth tightened. "Beetle!" Her voice was feeling it too. Christ! Brid was doing the shadow-fuck! Mandy was holding her hands to her head, her face creased up with the pain. "Beetle!!! What's she doing?! Help me!!!!"

"Brid!" I shouted. "Leave her alone!" Did no good.

"Beetle!!!" Beetle didn't even look round to see the action. Maybe he knew just how far Bridget would go, before deciding that the message was home. Maybe.

"Get the fuck off! Fucking shadowbitch!!!"

Bridget was smiling. "You know what they say, new girl. Pure is poor --"

Mandy went for her, claws out, tripping over the Thing, who was still too feather-drunk to care. The two women ended up in a mess on the floor, and the Thing was joining in anyway, tentacles waving; no doubt adding it to the whatever Vurt dream he was still revelling in.

And I was just watching the mess, thinking, why is life like this? Why the fuck is life like this?

Beetle poured the van into the Moss Lane East.

Brid and Mandy rolled off the Thing, and into a corner clinch. I couldn't say a thing, but the Beetle was on hand; "Quit the fucking. We're here."

Indeed we were. Beetle swung the van into a parking space marked NO GO. Jammer didn't care any more. The van jolted to a vicious halt, sending Mandy and Brid back into the embraces of the Thing. The six tentacles wrapped themselves around Bridget. It was a loving embrace. Mandy scrambled away from the mess, breathing hard. "Fuck that! Fuck it! I just don't need that! Okay!"

The Beetle turned back to look at the women. "My bed is warm and wide," he said, "and life is short. Is that clear?"

"Clear," said Mandy.

Brid said nothing. Her eyes were closing to the pain. She was moving deeper into the Thing's enveloping body, gathering comfort from the deep shadows there.

Beetle twisted further round, to look me sideways in the eye. "Let's go, Scribble." Then he saw something in my eyes. "You scared?"

"No." "You should be. Pures don't go down the Bottle."

"I'm waiting. Let's go."

"No options. Know what I mean, Scribb?"

Sure. Sometimes you just get no options. Even when you're as pure as the rain, and your life is just a wet kiss on glass. And the Thing was speaking to me. "Xhasy! Xha, xha! Xhasy, xha!" Don't leave me here, alone. Something like that.

"We can't take the Thing," I said. "Too dangerous. We need him too much. One of us will have to stay."

"That's right, Scribb. That's why you're staying here?"

"Beetle!"

"No options."

"It's my trip, Bee. I know what we're after."

"And I know this place. Your battle's to come, Scribb."

Mandy opened the back doors. "Let's do it, Bee!"

Beetle turned back to Bridget. She was lying in the arms of the alien. "You got anything to say to me, Brid?" His voice had some kind of feeling in it. Tenderness. Just a trace. Bridget lifting her sleepy head slightly, from the arms of the Thing.

"It's your game, Beetle," her voice was shadow-deep. And then I got it. She wasn't talking, she was just thinking! I'd picked up the path between them.

The Beetle answered in a whisper. "That's right. My game."

Beetle got out of the van, and went round to the back doors, where Mandy was waiting for him. He leaned into the van, to talk to me. "You look after things this side," he said. Then he lowered his voice some. "I'm doing this for you, Scribble. Remember?"

"I remember."

"And for Desdemona..."

I remember.

GAME CAT

EXCHANGE MECHANISMS. Sometimes we lose precious things. Friends and colleagues, fellow travellers in the Vurt, sometimes we lose them; even lovers we sometimes lose. And get bad things in exchange; aliens, objects, snakes, and sometimes even death. Things we don't want. This is part of the deal, part of the game deal; all things, in all worlds, must be kept in balance. Kittlings often ask, who decides on the swappings? Now then, some say it's all accidental; that some poor Vurt thing finds himself too close to a door, at too crucial a time, just when something real is being lost. Whoosh! Swap time! Others say that some kind of overseer is working the MECHANISMS OF EXCHANGE, deciding the fate of innocents. The Cat can only tease at this, because of the big secrets involved, and because of the levels between you, the reader, and me, the Game Cat. Hey, listen; I've struggled to get where I am today; why should I give you the easy route? Get working, kittlings! Reach up higher. Work the Vurt.

Just remember Hobart's rule; R = V ± H, where H is Hobart's constant. In the common tongue; any given worth of reality can only be swapped for the equivalent worth of Vurtuality, plus or minus 0.267125 of the original worth. Yes my kittlings, it's not about weight or volume or surface area. It's about worth. How much the lost ones count, in the grand scheme of things. You can only swap back those that add up to something, within Hobart's constant. Like for like, give or take 0.267125. We have prostrated ourselves at the feet of goddess Vurt, and we must accept the sacrifice. You'll want them back of course, your lost and lonely ones. You'll cry out for them, all through the dark and empty nights. Swapback can be made, but the way is full of knives, glued-up doors, pathways of glass. Only the strong can make it happen. Listen up. Be careful. Be very, very careful. You have been warned. This comes from the heart.

DOWN THE BOTTLE

The Beetle and Mandy, walking on a path of glass.

The noise of a window cracking in the afternoon.

A spectrum of colours radiating out from the sun, as it flared above the high-rises. The light refracting through moisture suspended in the air.

The shimmering air.

A million pieces of the sun shining on the walkways.

Beetle and Mandy disappearing into the rainbow mirage.

I followed them as best I could, moving up to the front seat for a better look. From every direction the crystal sharp segments of smashed up wine bottles, and beer bottles, and gin bottles, caught and magnified every stray beam of Manchester light. The whole of Bottletown, from the shopping centre to the fortress flats, shone and glittered like a broken mirror of the brightest star. Such is beauty, in the midst of the city of tears. In Bottletown even our tears flicker like jewels.

I knew that the Beetle had the gift of seeing beauty in ugliness. It's just that I'm more used to ugliness than he is, seeing it every day in cruel mirrors, and in the mirrors of women's eyes.

Bottletown had only been around for ten years or so. Some kind of urban dream. Pretty soon the wholesome families moved out and the young and the listless moved in, and then the blacks and the robo-crusties and the shadowgoths and the students. Pretty soon the students moved out, sick to the back of mummy and daddy's car with too much burglary, too much mugging. Then the blacks moved out, leaving the place to the non-pure -- hybrids only need apply. About a year later the council opened a pair of bottle banks on the outskirts of the town, one for white glass, one for green. The nice people from the outlying districts would come there, just to the edge of dirtiness, in order to drop their evidence of excessive alcohol intake. The council stopped emptying the bottle banks, and anybody walking there had to sink into a bed of pain, just to get near the good times.