'Oh God,' said Derek. 'I never noticed.'

'You -weren't intended to.'

'Let's turn around and get out of this asylum. Before some sniper picks us off or we drive into a minefield.'

'Where does your aunty live?' Kelly asked.

'I really can't imagine that she's living any more.'

'Well, just in case. Where does she live?'

Derek checked his London A-Z and noticed for the first time the slim red line that ran around the not-so-new town known as Mute Corp Keynes. 'Second on the left, just past the burnt-out church.'

'Next to the burnt-out pub?'

'No past that. Opposite the burnt-out Citizens Advice Bureau.'

'You'd better drive on the pavement to avoid the stinger.'

Derek drove on the pavement.

His aunty's house was number twenty-two. The bungalow with the gun turret on the roof. The moat, the razor wire and the sign that warned of killer canines on the loose at night. Unlike the yard of the Brentford Tour Company, this was no idle warning.

Kelly observed the martial premises. 'Your aunty seems to have adapted well to the changing of the times,' said she.

'She was always pretty tough,' said Derek. 'She was in the SAS, only woman to ever make it to major. There's a lot of military in my family. I think I've always been a bit of a disappointment to them.'

'I really can't imagine why,' said Kelly Anna Sirjan.

There was a bell push on the iron gate that led into the moated compound. The sign above said knock down ginger on this bell and know the joy a bullet brings.

'Perhaps you'd care to ring,' said Derek.

'We are being laser-scanned,' said Kelly. 'I've a securiscan meter in my shoulder bag, I can feel it vibrating.'

'What?' went Derek.

'You'd better press the button. She doesn't know me.'

'Securiscan meter in your shoulder bag? I don't understand.'

'Just push the button please. We are also being scanned from across the street. I think we are about to be shot at.'

'Oh God, oh damn, oh me oh my,' said Derek, pushing the bell button.

Kelly pushed Derek suddenly aside. The deathly rattle of machine-gun fire came swiftly to her ears. Bullets ripped along the ground. And there was an explosion.

'Oh God!' screamed Derek, covering his head. 'We're going to die! We're going to die!'

Smoke and explosions, machine-gun fire mayhem and approaching death with no salvation? Off into the blackness of forever. Not to be borne up to The Rapture. Derek cowered and shivered and uttered certain prayers.

The lock on the gate clicked open. Kelly's hand reached out to Derek.

'Come with me, if you want to live,' she said.

Derek's Aunty Uzi (named after a product that cleans up in its own particular way) was what you would call a fine-looking woman. At least to her face, anyway. She stood all of six feet four in her holistic Doveston footwear, which she'd customized with a nice line of studs. For those who love a tattoo, her buttocks were the place to be. And for those who favour a duelling scar, her forehead was the business.

'On your feet, soldier,' said Derek's aunty. 'Falling asleep on parade, is it?'

Derek fussed and fretted. He was curled up upon a doormat that had long worn out its welcome, in a hallway where the angels feared to tread. Outside the gunfire was sporadic, with only the occasional bullet ricocheting from the armoured porch or bouncing off the titanium steel of the window boxes.

'He was always a cringing wimp,' said Derek's aunty to Kelly. 'Living the high life with the toffs in Brentford has softened him up even more.'

'People were shooting at us.' Derek remained in the foetal position, which seemed to suit him just fine. 'This is London in the twenty-first century. I knew things were grim here. But this…'

Derek's aunty rolled her eyes at Kelly. 'Would you care for a cup of tea, my dear?' she asked.

'Do you have anything stronger?'

'I can put two tea bags in your cup.'

'That should hit the spot.'

'Well, we girls will just leave you to your cringing, Derek. OK?'

Derek made silly whimpering sounds. Aunty Uzi led Kelly away into the kitchenette. 'They weren't even shooting to kill,' she said. 'They were just having a bit of fun.'

Kelly looked all around and about the kitchenette. It was grim as kitchenettes go, but kitchenettes always are.

A pokey thing is a kitchenette and this particular one was made all the more pokey due to the stacks of ammunition boxes and the grenade launchers which leaned against the cooker, beside the Mute Corp wonder mop and the Mute Corp sweeper.

'Is your water filtered?' Kelly asked.

'Oh you're good,' said Aunty Uzi. 'Very good.'

Kelly's hand moved up to her hair, but then moved down again. 'Good?' she said. 'Whatever do you mean?'

'Cool,' said Aunty Uzi. 'Very cool.'

'I try not to panic. Panic costs lives. Lost lives lose large battles.'

'You were in the marines.'

'I did my national service.'

Derek's aunty boiled up water and did what you have to do with it to make two cups of tea. 'Derek dodged his national service,' she said, stirring the tea with a four-teen-inch commando knife.

'I didn't know you could dodge national service,' said Kelly.

'Don't ever make the mistake of trusting Derek. He's a man who will always let you down.'

'I heard that,' called Derek from the hall.

Aunty Uzi handed Kelly a cup of something loosely resembling tea. 'So,' she said. 'Kelly Anna Sirjan, aged twenty-two, no convictions, no breaches of the civil code. Three degrees and a 12th Dan Master of Dimac. What's a lady like you doing hanging around with a jerk like my nephew?'

Kelly shrugged. 'I'm on attachment to the BrentfordMercury. He's showing me around.'

'Still cool,' said Aunty Uzi. 'You're not going to ask me how I know all about you.'

'You securiscanned us as we stood at your gate. That's standard procedure in a high-risk area.'

'We'll let that one pass for now, then.' Aunty Uzi slurped at the tea. 'This tastes foul,' she said. 'But there's more to you than meets the eye. And what meets the eye has been carefully put together.'

'You haven't asked us why we're here,' said Kelly. 'I'm sure you're not under the mistaken belief that Derek felt a sudden pressing need to visit his aunty.'

Aunty Uzi grinned, exposing ranks of steel teeth. 'I assume that he brought you here at your request. You can ask me what it is you wish to know. You never know, I might even tell you.'

Kelly leaned upon the cooker. It was a Mute Corp Supercook, the 3000 series, looking a little the worse for wear.

'Tell me this,' she said. 'Why do you stay in this place?'

'This is Mute Corp Keynes. The town of the future, today.'

Kelly made that face that says 'Yeah right'.

'I bought this place in two-double-o-five,' said Derek's Aunty Uzi. 'My husband Alf and I were amongst the very first to move in. It was all here at a price we could afford. Fully integrated living accommodation. Everything online. State of the art. High tech, low cost. It was all going to be up-and-coming young professional. The dream town UK.'

'So what went wrong?' Kelly asked.

'Well, it was all bullshit, wasn't it? Nothing ever worked properly. The whole thing had been done on the cheap and we'd all signed up for our low cost twenty-year non-transferable mortgages. Folk couldn't sell up, so they moved away and sublet their houses. That wasn't strictly legal and the folk they'd sublet their houses to soon realized that they could get away without paying the rent. Neighbourhoods can go down pretty quickly. By twenty-ten this place was already a bad place to walk around at night. Now it's a bad place, period.'