'Idiot! Dodge and dive! No wonder you get shot alot!'

He wiggled the joystick. Something clipped one ofthe starship's wings and exploded behind him.

'And you've got the fighters after you! Huh! Youcan't even save yourself!'

Johnny didn't take his eyes off the fleet, which wasbouncing around the sky as he flung his ship about inan effort to avoid being shot at.'You might try to be some help!' he shouted.There was a boom behind him.'I am.''You're shooting them?''You're very hard to please, actually.'

The Captain tried the door of her cabin again. It wasstill locked. And there was almost certainly a guard inthe corridor outside. ScreeWee tended to obey orders,even if they didn't like them. The Gunnery Officer wasvery unusual.

That, she thought bitterly, is what comes of pro-moting a male. They're unreliable thinkers.

She looked around the cabin. She didn't want to bein it. She wanted to be outside it. But she was in it. Sheneeded a new idea.

Humans seemed much better at ideas. They alwaysseemed to be on the verge of being totally insane, butit seemed to work for them. The inside of their headswould be an interesting place to visit, but she wouldn'twant to live there.

How do you think like a human? Go into madnessfirst, probably, and then out the other side . .

'Listen! Listen! If you keep going this way, you'll allbe killed! You're going back into game space! Peoplelike me will find you! You'll all be killed! That's howit goes!'

And then he died.

It was 6.3 ~. He was lying on his bed with his clotheson, but he still felt cold.

Bits and pieces of his ... his previous life trickledthrough his mind.

Sigourney!

Well, Yo-less would say that explained anything.And now it looked as if he'd be spending every nightwatching the ScreeWee get killed.

It was bad enough fighting off people in ones andtwos. But they were just the ones who were weird orlonely or bored enough to go looking. Wobbler saidthousands of copies of the game had been sold. Even ifmost people took them back to the shops, there'dalways be someone playing. Once the ScreeWee turnedup again, the news would get around

And then, one day, long after no-one played thegame any more, there'd be these broken ships, turningover and over in the blank-screen darkness of gamespace.

And he couldn't stop it. Kir-, Sigourney was right.That's what they were there for.

It was Tuesday, too. It was Maths for most of themorning. And then English. He'd better write a poemat lunchtime. You could generally get away with apoem.

He got his jacket out of the shed and sponged it offas best he could, and then propped it up by the heater.Then he investigated the fridge.

His father had been doing the shopping again. Youcould always tell. There were generally expensivethings in jars, and odd foreign vegetables. This timethere was Yoghurt Vindaloo and more celery. No-onein the house liked celery much. It always ended upgoing brown. And his father never bought bread andpotatoes. He seemed to think that stuff like that justgrew in kitchens, like mushrooms (although he alwaysbought mushrooms, if they were the special expensivedried kind that looked like bits of mouldy bark andwere picked by wizened old Frenchmen).

There was a carton of milk which thumped when heshook it.

Johnny found a cup in the ghastly cavern of thedishwasher and rinsed it under the tap. At least therewasn't much that could go wrong with black coffee.

He quite enjoyed the time by himself in the morn-ings. The day was too early to have started going reallywrong.

The war was still on television. It was getting on hisnerves. It was worrying him. You'd really think every-one would have had enough by now.Bigmac was in school. He'd stayed the night at Yo-less's. Mrs Yo-less had washed out his clothes, even theT-shirt with 'Blackbury Skins' on the back. It was a lotcleaner than it had ever been.

He could feel Wobbler and Yo-less looking at himwith interest. So were one or two other people.

Later on, when they were in the middle of the rushwhich meant that every pupil in the school had to walkall the way across the campus to be somewhere else,Yo-less said: 'Bigmac said you pulled him out of thewreck. Did you?'

'What? He wasn't even-' Johnny paused.

It was amazing. He'd never thought so fast before.He thought of Bigmac's room, with its Weapons of theWorld posters and plastic model guns and weight-training stuff he couldn't lift. Bigmac had been thrownout of the school role-playing games club for gettingtoo excited. Bigmac, who spent all his time tryinghard to be a big thicko; Bigmac, who could workout maths problems just by looking at them. Bigmac,who played the game of being ... well, big toughBigmac.

Johnny looked around. Bigmac was watching him.It was amazing, given that Bigmac's ancestors werea sort of monkey, how much his expression lookedlike the one he'd first seen on the face of the Captain,whose ancestors were a kind of alligator. It said: Helpme.

'Can't really remember,' he said.

'Only my mum rang the hospital and they said therewere only two boys and they were-'

'It was dark,' said Johnny.

'Yes, but if you'd really-'

'It's just best if everyone shuts up about it, all right?'said Johnny, nodding meaningfully at Bigmac.

'She said you did everything right, anyway,' saidYo-less. 'And she said you aren't being properly lookedafter.''Yo-less.''She said you ought to come round our house to eatsometimes.''Thanks,' said Johnny. 'I'm a bit busy these days''Doing what?' said Yo-less.Johnny fumbled in his pocket.'What does this look like to you?' he said.Yo-less took it gravely.

'It's a photograph,' he said. 'Just looks like a TVscreen with dots on.

'Yes,' sighed Johnny 'It does, doesn't it'

He took it back and shoved it deep into his pocket.

'Yo-less?'

'What?'

'If someone was.., you know.., going a bit weirdin the head'

'Mental, he means,' said Wobbler, behind him.

just a bit over-strained,' said Johnny. 'I mean -would they know? Themselves?'

'Well, everyone thinks they're a bit mad,' saidYo-less. 'It's part of being normal.'

'Oh, I don't think I'm mad,' said Johnny.

'You don't?'

'Well'

'Ah-aha' said Wobbler.

'I mean the whole world seems kind of weird rightnow. You watch the telly, don't you? How can yoube the good guys if you're dropping clever bombsright down people's chimneys? And blowing peopleup just because they're being bossed around by aloony?'

'Shouldn't let 'emselves be bossed around, then,' saidBigmac. Johnny looked at him. Bigmac deflated a bit.'It's their own fault. They don't have to. That's whatmy brother says, anyway,' he mumbled.

'Is it?' said Johnny.

Bigmac shrugged.

'Oh, well, yes,' said Wobbler. 'How? It's hardenough to get rid of prime ministers and at least theydon't have people taken out and shot. Not any more,anyway.

'My brother's stupid,' said Bigmac, so quietly underhis breath that Johnny wondered if anyone else evenheard it.

'There was a man on the box saying that the bomb-aimers were so good because they all grew up playingcomputer games,' said Wobbler.

'See?' said Johnny. 'That's what I mean. Games lookreal. Real things look like games. And ... and... itall kind of runs together in my head.'

'Ah,' said Yo-less, knowingly. 'That's not mental.That's shamanism. I read a book about it.'

'What's shamanism?'

'Shamans used to be these kind of people who livedpartly in a dream world and partly in the real world,'said Wobbler. 'Like medicine men and druids and guyslike that. They used to be very important. They usedto guide people.'

'Guide?' said Johnny. 'Where to?'

'Not sure. Anyway, my mother says they werecreations of Satan.'