The tower loomed all alone, black against the sky,like someone's last tooth.

There wasn't much else around the place. There wasa row of boarded up shops, but you could see wherethe fire had been. And there was a pub made out ofneon lights and red brick; it was called The JollyFarmer.

The tower had won an award in 1965, just beforebits had started falling off. It was always windy. Evenon the calmest day, gales whistled icily through theconcrete corridors. The place was some kind of windreservation. If the Joshua N'Clement block had existeda few thousand years ago, people would have comefrom all over the country to sacrifice to the wind god.

Johnny's father called it Rottweiler Heights. Johnnycould hear them barking as he walked up the stairs (thelifts had stopped working in 1966). Everyone in thetower seemed afraid, and mostly they seemed afraid ofone another.

Bigmac lived on the fourteenth floor, with hisbrother and his brother's girlfriend and a pit bull terriercalled Clint. Bigmac's brother was reliably believed tobe in the job of moving video recorders around in aninformal way.

Johnny knocked cautiously, hoping to be loudenough to be heard by the people but quiet enough tobe missed by Clint. No such luck. A wall of sounderupted from behind the door.

After a while there was the clink of a chain and thedoor opened a few centimetres. A suspicious eyeappeared at about the height an eye should be, while ametre below there was a certain amount of confusedactivity as Clint tried to get both eyes and his teeth intothe same narrow crack.

'Yeah?'

'Is Bigmac in?'

'Dunno.'

Johnny knew about this. There were only fourrooms in the flat. Bigmac's family was huge and livedall over the town, and practically no member of it knewwhere any other member was until they were quite surewho was asking.

'It's me, Johnny Maxwell. At school.'

Clint was trying to push a fifteen-centimetre-widehead through a five-centimetre-wide hole.

'Oh. yeah.' Johnny felt that he was being carefullysurveyed. 'He's down the pub. Yeah.'

'Oh, right,' said Johnny in what he hoped was a nor-mal voice. 'I mean, yeah.'

Bigmac was thirteen. But the landlord of The JollyFarmer was reputed to serve anyone who didn't actuallyturn up on a tricycle.

His way home led back past the pub anyway. Heagonized a bit about going in. It was all right forBigmac. Bigmac had been born looking seventeen. ButBigmac turned out to be outside anyway, leaningagainst the bonnet of a car. He had a couple of friendswith him. They watched Johnny intently as heapproached, and the one who had been nonchalantlyfiddling with the car's door handle stood up and glared.

Johnny tried to swagger a bit.

'Yeah, Johnny,' said Bigmac, in a vague kind ofway.

He's different here, Johnny thought. Older andharder.

The other youths relaxed a little. Bigmac knewJohnny. That made him acceptable, for now.

'Don't often see you up here,' said Bigmac. 'Youdrinking now or what?'

Johnny got the feeling that asking for a Coke woulddefinitely be bad for his street cred. He decided toignore the question.

'I'm looking for Plonker,' he said. 'Wobbler said youknow him?'

'What d'you want him for?' said Bigmac.On the wall in school, or down at the mall, Bigmacwouldn't have even asked. But there were differentrules here. Like, in school Bigmac tried to hide howgood he was at numbers, and up here he had to hide hisability to hold a normal conversation.

Johnny saw a way through.

'Actually I'm looking for his sister,' he said.

One of Bigmac's friends sniggered.

Bigmac took Johnny's arm and led him a little wayoff.

'What'd you come up here for?' he said. 'Youcould've asked me tomorrow.'

'It's ... important.'

'Bigmac! You coming or what?'

Bigmac glanced over his shoulder.

'Can't,' he said. 'Got to sort out something else.'One of the kids said something to the other one, andthey both laughed. Then they got into the car. Aftera little while it started up, bumped up on to the pave-ment and off again, and then accelerated into the night.They heard the tyres screech as it turned the corner onthe wrong side of the road.

Bigmac relaxed. Suddenly he was a lot less tough.and a bit shorter, and more like the amiable not-quite-thicko Johnny had always known.

'Didn't you want to go with them?' said Johnny.

'You're a right nerd, aren't you,' said Bigmac, in afriendly enough voice.

'Wobbler says you have to say dweeb now, not nerd,'said Johnny.

'I usually say dickhead. Come on, let's go,' saidBigmac. 'Cos there'll probably be some unhappypeople around here pretty soon. 'S'their own fault forleaving a car here.'

'What?'

'Dweeb. You don't know nothing about real life,you.'

'It's just games,' said Johnny, half to himself. 'All dif-ferent sorts. Bigmac?'

Somewhere away in the distance a car horn wailed,and was suddenly cut off. Bigmac stopped walking.The breeze blew his T-shirt against him, so that 'Ter-minator' was superimposed on a chest that looked likea toast rack.

'What?' he said.

'Look, have you ever wondered what's real and whatisn't?'

'Bloody stupid thing to wonder,' said Bigmac.

'Why?'

'Reals real. Everything else isn't.'

'What about, - well, dreams?'

'Nah. They're not real.'

'They've got to be something. Otherwise you couldn'thave them, right?' said Johnny desperately.

'Yeah, but that's not the same as really real.'

'Are people on television real?'

'Course!'

'Why're we treating them as a game, then?'

'You mean ... on the News-'

'Yes!'

'That's different. You can't have people goingaround doing what they like.''But we-''Anyway, space games aren't real,' said Bigmac. Hekept looking down the dark street.Johnny relaxed a little.'Are you real?''Dunno. Feel real. It's all crap anyway.'What is?'

'Everything. So who cares? Come on, I'm goingback home.'

They strolled past what had been, in 1965. anenvironmental green space and was now a square ofdog-poisoned earth where the shopping trolleys wentto die.

'Plonker's a bit of a maniac,' said Bigmac. 'Bit of awild man. Bit of a loony. Lives in a big posh house,though.'

'Where?'

'Oh. in Tyne Avenue or Crescent or somewhere,'said Bigmac.

A blue light lit his face for a moment as a police carflashed past the end of the road, its siren dee-dahing intothe distance.

Bigmac froze.

'What's his real name?' said Johnny.

'Eh? Yeah. Carry. I think.'

Bigmac was staring at the end of the road. The bluelight was still visible. It had stopped about half a mileaway; they could see it reflected off an advertisinghoarding.

'Just Carry?' said Johnny.

Bigmac's face was wet in the light of the street lamps.

'Might be Dunn,' said Bigmac. He shifted uneasilyfrom one foot to the other.

Another siren echoed around the night. An ambu-lance went past on the main road, ghostly under itsflashing light.

'Look, Bigmac-'

'Bugger off!'

Bigmac turned and ran, his Doc Marten's crashing onthe pavement. Johnny watched him go. He thought ofall the things he should have said. He wasn't stupid.Everyone knew what happened to cars around the darktower. What could he say now?

And his body thought: You don't say anything. Youdo something. It started running all by itself after hisfriend, taking his brain with it.

Despite a bedroom full of weight-training equipmentthat would have been of considerable interest if thepolice had ever bothered much about a recent theftdown at the Sports Centre, Bigmac wasn't in much ofa condition. He had been born out of condition. Johnnycaught him up on the bend.

'I told you ... to ... buggeroff! Nothingtodo ... withyou!' said Bigmac. as they headedtowards the distant lights.