Tristan stared at Beetle. Then he turned away, towards Suze. He was running his hands through their joint hair, almost like he was testing just to see if she was still there, attached, safe. Suze picked up a card from the table, and held it out to me.

"This is your card, Scribble," she said.

"No. No, it's not."

"You just don't know it yet."

The first drifts of darkness showed through the flat's windows, and I was thinking about Bridget and the Thing, and how I should get back there, see how they were doing. And how everything was over, and another night without love.

"Well, cheers, mate," said the Beetle, with bitterness in his voice.

I guess the guy was looking out for me.

"Karli will see you home," said Tristan.

"You won't get scared without the pooch?" asked Beetle.

Tristan opened a door in the wall and I smelt turds and bad breath, meat and piss.

I looked into a dark place. The walls were covered in scratches and bites. In the shadows were darker shadows. Sleeping shadows, moving and breathing to a slow pulse. A low growling started up as Tristan turned on a sad little light and I saw the dogs there, a fur-lined duo. Great beasts. All plastic bones and synthetics.

"Robohounds," Tristan whispered. "Karli's mum and dad. Be careful. They bite." And I could see something in Tristan then, some trace of something dog-like.

"These are the beauties that keep us safe," he said.

"Christ!"

"Indeed. Bow down to the dogs."

TORCHERS

Walking along a gangway, like on a tall ship, concrete ship, miles above the sea of glass. Me, Beetle, Mandy, Tristan, and Suze. Oh yeah, and the dog. Karli. Great slavering fur-metal beast, stretched out taut at the end of Suze's leash. Tristan carrying his gun, just for show really. Who's going to touch him? Because they know what would be coming then. And two robodogs left back in the flat, looking after the homestead. Night coming down. No one talking much, just walking the high-rise, hung up on private things. Each still strung out on wisps of herb, just enough to make the world seem kind of beautiful, even this place. The emptiness inside of me reflected in the glass fragments. So I was a thousand times sad, with each footstep. Sometimes even broken glass, cracked cement, sad lives; well they seem like the good dreams of bad things.

And I was thinking well perhaps all is well, and Brid and the Thing will be glad to greet us and we don't need this old crusty anyway. We were the Stash Riders, and Desdemona was one of us, and we would be back together, just as soon as I got my act together. Shit, man, it was easy! All I had to do was find some English Voodoo feather, go inside, taking the Thing with me. Find some meta-feather in there, some Curious Yellow, the most famous feather in the world, go inside. Find Desdemona in there, swap her back for the Thing, breaking all the known rules of Vurt, find our way back out. Shit, man, it was a piece of cake. Shit cake.

Now we were descending the stairwell.

"Sorry about not being much help," Tristan was saying to the Beetle.

The Beetle just shrugged. "I'm just trying to warn you, my friend." There was an edge of sadness to Tristan's voice, but I wasn't paying much attention.

"You had a good night, though?" Suze asked.

"Great night," said the Beetle. Maybe he meant it.

We'd reached the bottom of the stairs, and we could smell fire in the air. Dogs were howling all through the Bottletown night.

"What's that?" asked Mandy.

"Some jokers," answered Suze. "Don't worry." "

"Happens every night," added Tristan.

"They love to burn things."

"They call themselves the Torchers," said Tristan. "Crazy tribe."

"Oh fuck." That was me.

"It'll be some waste-bin," said Suze.

But I knew. But I fucking knew it!

We turned the corner of a dead liftshaft, into the car-park, and there was our lovely Stashmobile in a shroud of flames. Burning. Burning.

"Shit!" The Beetle's voice. The van a forest of fire. No one could live through that. No one. Low-level shadowgirl and an alien from Vurt. Gone to the flames.

The five of us, and the dog, all of us transfixed. As the van burned, and the glass told the story a thousand times. Then I was running into the flames, scorching my hands on the door handle.

Oh shit. Oh the Thing and Brid!

And all the hope drifting away from my life, all the hope of an exchanging the Thing for the sister.

All the hopes of my life...

Karli had slipped her leash, she was running around the van, barking at the flames. Beetle had joined me, to help pull open the doors, but instead he was pulling me back, and I was suffering, the smoke bringing tears to my eyes, and the loss, all the losses, bringing tears.

Midnight. A drift of smoke. The van a pile of metal bones, blistered leatherette, melted rubber. My mind burnt. Just sitting there, on a vandalised bench, watching the van's corpse slowly fading. The stench of fire in my head, the glow of embers. A bunch of onlookers, Bottletown dwellers, come to watch the flames. Some of them were laughing. I was too far gone to care. The night was orange.

Tristan and Suze had rushed back to their flat for an extinguisher, but their hair had slowed them down, it just wasn't possible. And anyway, it didn't matter. There was nothing to save.

Karli Dog was nuzzling up to me, offering loads of comfort licks. I kept pushing her away, but she just kept on coming back anyway. So I let that long tongue carry on. It did some good, truth be known.

Tristan and Suze had come back with the foam-gun, but it was like pouring water on Hell. That van was going to burn, until everything was cinders. Until flesh was bone.

It just didn't matter anyway.

The Beetle had smeared his driving gloves with a full tube of Vaz. Then he'd gone up close to the dying flames, grabbed the back door handle, wrenched it loose. The door swung open, letting out a thick cloud of smoke. I'd watched the Beetle brave the smoke and the heat, thinking what a good guy he was. Then he turned away from the van, and walked towards me.

His face was soot-blackened.

They're not there, Scribble."His words.

I'd just looked at him.

They're not there. It's empty."

Bottletown kids laughing and dancing in the orange night, and me just sitting on a broken down car-park bench, thinking about the world, and getting licked to fuck by a mixed-up pile of dog flesh and plastic, name of Karli.

Shards of glass under my feet, the colours of dreams.

In Bottletown, even our tears flicker like jewels.

Day 3

"We're all out there, somewhere, waiting to happen."

BLUE LULLABY

I woke up, inside of a dream. There was wool all around me, a total comfort fix. I was slow-drifting through the heavy layers of murmurs and soft touch, with five lovely angels singing to me, lullabies. And it felt nice.

Like a dream.

Five angels stroking me with azure blue feathers.

One of the angels had blonde hair and a dragon tattoo on her left upper arm. Her name was Desdemona. Another had black hair and black eyes rimmed with black liner and falling eyelids, with smoke rising from her body. Her name was Bridget. The third had six arms, all the better to stroke me with. His name was the Thing. The fourth had teeth like jewels, soft paws, and a long wet tongue of bliss. Her name was Karli Dog. The last of the angels was fat, but wearing it well, with two sets of eyes, one set red, the other white. Its name was the Van.

All five had feathers in their hands, and each a different technique of stroking. Their soft flutterings played all over my skin. I was naked. Unashamed, mind. Not like me at all. But I was just loving the feelings; the voices of the angels, the warm clutch of the dream.