Saul swore, struggled to regain his feet, went under again. Hebecame enraged, surged to his feet, spilling rats as he rose. A fewfeet away he could see the pitiful sight of Loplop’s body bobbingbelow the surface of the rats, trying and failing to stand.

Saul shook himself and brown bodies spun through the air. He couldnot reach the boombox. He tugged hard with his feet, which seemedstuck as firmly as in quicksand. He roared, suddenly livid, pulledinexorably through the mass of rats, stumbled again, yanked andforced his way through, past King Rat, to the point where the ratsthinned out and the stereo hung six feet from the floor.

He reached up to it, and saw King Rat. He stopped moving,shocked.

King Rat stood in thrall, his face slack, his limbs swingingvaguely, stripped of dignity, a string of drool stretching andsnapping from his lower jaw. Saul stared, fascinated andhorrified.

He hated King Rat, hated what he had done, but something in himwas appalled at seeing him so shorn of power.

Saul turned and grasped the swinging box, pulled hard, snappingthe rope.

He smashed it hard against the wall.

The music stopped at the instant of impact. Metal and plasticspattered out of the broken casing. He slammed it twice more againstthe brick. Its speakers burst out of their housing. A tape flew fromthe ruined cassette deck.

Saul turned and looked at the assembled multitude.

They stood still, confused.

Understanding and recollection seemed to well over them allsimultaneously. In a panic, a terrified flurry, the rats emitted acommunal hiss and disappeared, scampering over each other, madeclumsy by the fallen.

The mountain crumbled and disappeared. Lame and ruined rats triedto follow their fellows. The first wave was gone; then the secondwave, limping after them; and the third wave, the dying, hauledthemselves away, sliding on blood.

The ground was covered with bodies. Corpses lay two, three thick.Loplop crawled into a corner. King Rat stared at Saul. Saul lookedback at him for a moment, then returned his attention to the ruinedstereo. He fumbled in the mud until he found the tape.

He wiped it, examined the label.

Flute 1, it said. It was handwritten. It was Natasha’swriting.

‘Oh fuck,’ Saul shouted and pushed his head into the crook of hisarm. ‘Oh fuck, oh leave them alone, you fucker,’ he breathed.

He heard King Rat move forward. Saul looked up sharply. King Ratlooked uneasy. He moved with a deferential cast to his limbs,resentment curling his mouth. He was intimidated, Saul realized.

Saul nodded.

‘It’s just noise to me,’ he whispered. He nodded again, saw KingRat’s eyes widen. ‘Just noise.’

With a shriek Loplop saw Saul, ran towards him flapping his ragsand his arms, stumbled as he ran.

King Rat started. Saul stepped smartly out of Loplop’s way andwatched as the Bird Superior slipped in mud, went over in ahalf-controlled fall and banged his head against the wall.

Saul gesticulated at King Rat, danced back a few steps.

‘Keep that motherfucker under control!’ he shouted.

Loplop still shouted, still yelled his incoherent cries as hetried to stand. King Rat strode to where Loplop slithered in mud, andgripped his collar. He tugged him, pulled him along the slipperysewer bottom. Loplop struggled and whimpered. At the entrance to thetunnel King Rat crouched before him, held his finger before Loplop’sface. Saul could not tell if he was speaking to Loplop, or merelyholding him still, with those eyes. Some kind of communication passedbetween them.

Loplop stared past King Rat at Saul. He looked afraid and enraged.King Rat regained his gaze and seemed to say something, gesticulated.Loplop’s eyes returned to Saul, and the same rage filled him asbefore, but he backed away, moved away through the tunnels,disappeared.

King Rat turned back to Saul.

As he walked back through the bodies of the rats, Saul saw thatKing Rat had regained his furtive swagger. He had composedhimself.

‘Back, then?’ King Rat asked casually.

Saul ignored him. He looked up into the shaft from which he hadpulled the stereo. Several feet above, a grille was visible, andabove it the drab orange-shot black of the city night. Something wasaffixed to the inside of the narrow shaft.

‘So what you here for, then, chal?’ asked King Rat, hisinsouciance wearing and affected.

‘Fuck you,’ replied Saul quietly. He stood on tiptoe, reached upinto the vertical tunnel. He could feel a corner of paper flapping inwind. He gripped it, pulled gently, but succeeded only in tearing thecorner away.

He looked down briefly. King Rat stood near him, his hands helduncertainly to his chest.

Saul looked around him at the corpses.

‘Another fine display of leadership skills, then, Dad.’

‘Fuck you, you pissing little half-breed, I’ll kill you…’

‘Oh give it a rest, old man,’ said Saul, disgusted. ‘You need me,you know it, I know it, so shut up with your stupid threats.’ Hereturned his attention to the tunnel. He jumped up and grabbed thetop of the paper, pulled it down with him when he fell.

It came away in his hands. He spread it out.

It was a poster.

It was designed by someone with Adobe Illustrator, a sixth-formaesthetic and too much time. Garish and jumbled, a confusion of fontsand point sizes, information crowding itself out and details fightingfor space.

A line drawing took up most of the sheet: a grotesquely muscledman in sunglasses standing impassive behind a twin-deck turntable. Hestood with his arms folded, as the chaotic writing exploded aroundhim.

junglist terror!!! it exclaimed.

One night of Extreme Drum an’ Bass Badness!

10 pounds entry, it exclaimed, and gave the address of a a club inthe Elephant and Castle, in the badlands of South London; and a date,a Saturday night in early December.

Featuring da Cream of da Crop, Three Fingers, Manta, Ray Wired,Rudegirl K, Natty Funkah…

Rudegirl K. That was Natasha.

Saul let out a little cry. He bent slightly, his breath pushedfrom him.

‘He’s telling us,’ he hissed to King Rat. ‘He’s inviting us.’

Something was scrawled on the bottom of the poster, an addendumin a strange ornate hand. Also featuring a special guest! itproclaimed. Fabe M!

Jesus he was pathetic! Saul thought. He sank slowly back againstthe wall as he grasped the paper. Fabe M! Look, he’s trying to playgames, thought Saul, but this isn’t his environment, he doesn’t knowwhat to do, he can’t play with these words…

It made him feel obscurely comforted. Even in the misery ofknowing that his friends were in the hands of this creature, thismonster, this avaricious spirit, he felt a triumph in the ineptitudewith which his foe stumbled on jargon. He was trying for nonchalance,scribbling an addition in Drum and Bass style, but the language wasunfamiliar and he had stumbled. Fabe M! It sounded stupid andcontrived. He wanted Saul to know that he had Fabian, that Fabianwould be at the club, but he was not on his home ground, and hisclumsy affectation showed that.

Saul found himself chuckling, almost ruefully.

‘Bastard can’t play no more.’ He crushed the paper and threw it atKing Rat, who had been hovering nervously, resentfully. King Ratsnatched it out of the air. ‘Fucker’s telling us to come and getthem,’ said Saul, as King Rat opened out the sheet.

Saul pushed past King Rat, kicked his way through the bodies ofthe rat dead.

‘He’s operating like a fucking Bond villain,’ he said. ‘He wantsme. Knows I’ll come for him if he dangles my friends in front ofme.’

‘So what’s a rat to do?’ said King Rat.

Saul turned and stared at him. He knew, quite suddenly, that hiseyes were as hidden to King Rat as King Rat’s were to him.

‘What am I going to do?’ Saul said slowly. ‘A trap is only a trapif you don’t know about it. If you know about it, it’s a challenge.I’m going to go, of course. I’m going to Junglist Terror. To rescuemy friends.’ He could feel that sentiment within him which haddisturbed him before, a part of him saying fuck it, don’t go, it’snot your problem any more.