But Dr Druid was leaving the ward, the glamorous nurse's arm about his shoulder. Pearson Clarke was leaving too, he was trying to look very brave, but he •wasn't making much of a job of it.

'Come back.' Bob struggled up from his bed and hopped about on his good right foot.

'player three.'

'Yes I'm listening, I'm listening. What do you want me to do?'

'the game is called go mango,' said the large and terrible voice. 'there are three levels based on the three ages of man. ascend through the levels and find the treasure. find the treasure and you win the game.'

'Treasure?' said Big Bob, trying to remember whom it was he knew, whose brother was a pirate. 'Buried treasure?'

'you have three lives. you gain energy from the golden stones. in order to access weapons, you will have to crack the codes.'

'Weapons?' Big Bob hopped about. 'Please, I really don't understand. Am I dead? Am I in limbo? Why speakest thou of weapons?'

'game on,' said the large and terrible voice.

'No, wait, ouch my toe.'

'game on…'

'… no hold it.' It was a second voice that spoke. As large and terrible as the first, but ever so slightly different.

'game on,' said the first voice once more.

'no hold it. that's not fair. he can't run on one foot.'

'he can hop.'

'hopping isn't fair. give him both his feet to run on.'

'Art thou God?' asked Big Bob.

'all right,' said the first large and terrible voice. 'both feet. he won't make it past the first level anyway.'

'Level?' said Big Bob and then he went, 'Aaaaagh!'

Because his left big toe stretched out from his foot like an elasticated sausage and then sprang back with a ghastly twanging sound. 'Ouch!' and 'oh,' and 'aaah,' went Big Bob. 'Ah, my toe is better.'

'happy?' said the first voice.

'Not really,' said Big Bob.

'not you!' said the first voice.

'happy,' said the second voice. 'game on then, i'll kick your arse this time.'

'you wish,' said the first voice. 'and go mango.'

Big Bob now felt a kind of shivery juddery feeling creeping up and all over. He stared down at himself and was more than a little surprised to discover that he was no longer wearing the embarrassing tie-up-the-back gown thing that doctors in hospitals insist that you wear in order to make you feel even more foolish and vulnerable than you're already feeling. Big Bob was now wearing a tight-fitting one-piece synthavinylpolilycraspandexathene superhero-type suit with a big number three on the front. It actually made him look rather splendid, what with his great big chest and shoulders and all. On his feet were golden boots, and they looked rather splendid too.

Very Arnold Schwarzenegger. Very Running Man perhaps?

'Very nice indeed,' said Bob the Big. 'Although somewhat immodest about the groin regions. But how dost…'

'run you sucker,' said the second voice. And Big Bob suddenly felt like running. He felt very fit indeed.

'Find the treasure and I win?' he said.

But the voices said no more.

'OK.' Big Bob took a step forward. And 'Oh,' he said, as he did so. He certainly felt light upon his feet, a single step carried him forward at not inconsiderable speed. He appeared to be possessed of extraordinary fitness and agility. He'd never been a sluggard before. He'd always kept himself in shape. But now. But now.

But now.

'Oh yes,' said Big Bob. 'Oh yes indeed.' And he took another step and then another. And off he went across the ward and right out through the wall.

Bob paused upon his springing steps. He had just done that, hadn't he? He had just stepped right through the wall? Why had he done that? Why hadn't he just used the door?

Big Bob turned to look back at the wall. But the wall •wasn't there any more. He was standing now in the middle of the Butt's Estate. Brentford's posher quarter. On two sides of him rose the elegant Georgian houses built so long ago by the rich burghers of Brentford. Behind him the Seamen's Mission and before him the broad and tree-lined thoroughfare that led either in or out of the Butt's, depending on which way you're travelling.

Big Bob looked all around and about. This was the Butt's, and he was here. Well, he was here, but somehow this wasn't.

Big Bob looked all around and about just a little more. This wasn't quite right, not that anything was. But this wasn't right for sure. It looked like the Butt's Estate. The Butt's Estate he'd known for all of his life so far. Possibly all his life, if he was, as he feared, now dead. But this wasn't quite the Butt's Estate.

The evening sky above was a curious violet hue and all that it looked down upon was slightly out of kilter. The Butt's Estate wasn't real. It was more like a copy. More like a model. The colours here were too bright. The mellow bricks of the elegant buildings were unnatural, they lacked definition, everything had a flattened quality about it.

It was a copy. It was a model.

'Model?' said Big Bob to no-one but himself and then something inside his head went click. 'Model,' he said again. ' Computer model. This is like one of those holographic computer models of towns that architects create on their Mute Corp holocast computers.' And then Big Bob's brain went click just a little bit more. And then the light of a revelation dawned, as it was bound to sooner or later.

Though for some, it would have been sooner.

'Game on?' whispered Big Bob. 'Three lives? Golden stones? Weapons? Find the treasure? It's a computer game. I'm in a computer game.'

And then Big Bob began to laugh. He laughed and laughed and laughed. It was all so obvious, wasn't it? But he hadn't realized. He hadn't seen through it. What a fool. What an oaf. What a grade A buffoon.

Big Bob sighed. And it was a sigh of relief.

'I'm dreaming,' he said. 'I'm asleep. There was a film once. I saw it when I was a lad. Tron, that was it. A chap finds himself inside a computer game. Thou art a twotty git, Big Bob,' Bob told himself. 'But clearly thou dost have quite an imagination.

'Okey-dokey,' said Big Bob, smiling all over his great big face. 'Enough of all this. Time to wake up, I think.'

Well, you would think that, wouldn't you? You would try to wake up. And if it was a dream, and you'd twigged it was a dream, you probably would wake up. Or if, like those lucky blighters who are skilled in the art of lucid dreaming, you knew you were in a dream, you'd just stay asleep and really get into it. Because when you know you're in a dream, you can do anything you want to. Anything. And as men who are skilled in lucid dreaming never tire of telling you, you can't half have some amazing sex with some really famous women. But sadly, even if he had wanted to, which he wouldn't have done, as he was loyal to his wife, Big Bob wouldn't be having any amazing sex with any famous women.

Because Big Bob wasn't asleep.

Big Bob wasn 't dreaming.

But as Big Bob didn't know this yet, Big Bob tried to wake up.

Big Bob stretched out his big arms and did yawnings and stretchings and closings and openings of eyes and made encouraging sounds to himself and then began to wonder just why it was that he wasn't waking up and then he became very confused.

And very frightened also.

'I'm not waking up,' said Big Bob. 'I don't like this at all.'

'go on then,' said the large voice suddenly. 'shift off the square. get moving. go to level one.'

Big Bob ducked his head. Then looked up fearfully towards the violet sky. 'I am dreaming this, aren't I?' he said. 'Tell me I'm just dreaming this.'

'off the square. get moving.'

Big Bob now looked down. Although he stood upon the little grassy area of land before the Seamen's Mission, his feet did not rest upon the grass. His feet, encased as they now were within their rather dashing golden boots, stood upon a golden square. Rather plastic-looking. Rather unreal. Not very nice at all. Big Bob almost took a step forward.