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'Where were you?' I asked quickly. The Actioneer only mumbled and stuttered, and I shook him again, hard. 'This is the third question. It's important. Where? What were you dreaming?'

'I, in a jungle. I was in a jungle.'

'Was anyone else with you? Come on, think.'

'No, I, no, I was alone.' He was shaking, his hands trembling with fear, but I pushed him. You have to.

'Are you sure? Think.'

'Yes, but,' he shook his head vigorously and seemed on the verge of tears. It was hard, but I slapped him lightly across the face. Zenda didn't interfere: she knows I know what I'm doing.

'But what?'

A breath shuddered out of him.

'Someone was coming.'

There was a ring at the door and I nodded to Zenda. She opened it cautiously and the pizza delivery girl came in, took an uninterested look at Alkland and me, and headed straight for the kitchen. Zenda came and crouched down by us, doing her best to soothe the Actioneer. I don't know what it is about women, but they can do that. They have the technology. Even now, when no one really gives a shit about the difference between men and women any more, even now that more women work than men, even now that the sexes have stopped giving each other such a hard time all the time, there are differences, as there always have been. Men and women are not the same. I'm sorry, but it's true.

Alkland calmed marginally, but craned his neck to look towards the kitchen from which the sounds of culinary clattering were ringing.

'Who's she?' he asked querulously.

'Pizza girl,' I explained. They come and cook it in your own nukoven. Only takes a minute, and it tastes fantastic. And you're going to eat a lot of it, because straight afterwards you and I have to go somewhere.'

'Where?' he asked, plaintively, but I didn't get the chance to answer, because just then a massive explosion blew the kitchen into about a million pieces.

There's a weird thing about explosions. No matter how much you know that the sound they make is a dull crump, followed by the whistling of debris and the clang of shattering glass, there's only one word which sums them up.

Bang.

This one was more of a BANG!, in fact, and the immediate aftermath was kind of intense. Zenda was thrown on top of me and I ended up spread across the sofa over Alkland, covered in pieces of masonry and flashing, blinking videowall.

'Shit!' I shouted intelligently, leaping up when it seemed safe. 'Fuck!' I quickly checked Zenda, who was all right apart from a few scratches. 'Stay with him. Shit, where's Spangle? Where's the cat?'

I found him sitting dozily in the bedroom, looking mildly surprised but a lot more relaxed than I felt. I ran back into the living room. Sparks from the annihilated videowall were arcing up and around the hole through to the kitchen, and I kicked the power unit out as I stepped through.

The kitchen looked like, well as if a bomb had hit it, actually. It was full of smoke and small fires were burning in some of the corners. I stomped them out as best I could, trying to avoid the splodges of red grunge all over the floor and walls. It was impossible to tell which was pizza, and which wasn't.

'Is she dead?' called Zenda.

'Sort of!' I shouted. 'And the pizza's completely fucked too.' Alkland looked appalled at this until Zenda explained that the delivery girls are only pseudoflesh droids. Pizza firms in some of the seedier Neighbourhoods run a service where a pseudoflesh pizza droid will come round, have sex with you, cook you a pizza and then leave, and all for twenty credits. It was voted 'Most Tremendous

Concept Ever' for four years running in Chauv Neighbourhood, and I know a few busy women who have the number programmed into their phone.

I knelt in front of the remains of the nukoven and peered cautiously into it. Deep in the mangled twist of metal and covered with vaporised tomato paste I found what I was looking for. A small metallic cube with a flashing light on it.

It was an Impact device, which works like a bomb, but is more controllable as it destroys by artificial shock waves and can be set for radius. Luckily whoever had planted the bomb had left it at room dispersal intensity, assuming that would be enough. I didn't need the BugAnaly® to tell me what the flashing light meant. It was transmitting completion of its mission back to base, and transmitting by shock sound displacement. You can't screen against that.

'Fuck,' I said again, and hurried out into the living room. 'We have to get out of here, now.'

'Why?'

'Because any minute now we're going to have some visitors.'

Suddenly, with complete and utter clarity, I realised what it was that had tickled at the back of my mind on the roof of Stable, the disquieting thought I'd forgotten about. And I realised what it meant.

I ran around the living room, grabbing a few bits and pieces, while Zenda gently helped Alkland to his feet. I dashed into the bedroom, picked up Spangle, and then hurried everyone out into the hallway, where fire warning lights were flashing.

'Okay,' I said, 'Zenda, you have to get the hell back to the Centre. Take Spangle with you, and be very, very careful.'

'What's going on?'

'Alkland was right,' I said, shepherding them into the elevator and shooting it down towards the ground. These guys are deadly serious. When I called you, when I was trying to get into Stable, I'd just been shot at. I thought it was one of the gang that had got Alkland, but of course there was no gang.' The floor lights zipped past, and I willed the elevator to go faster as I handed Spangle over to Zenda.

'Who was it then?'

'Who knew I was going in? You, Ji, Snedd. the Centre. C, Darv, and however many lunatics they have on their side. They tried to kill me yesterday, before I'd even got to Alkland.'

The Centre don't try to kill people.'

"They do now.'

The elevator crashed to a halt at ground and I pushed the two of them out in front of me, and then took a second to send the elevator back up to the top floor. We hit the street at a run. A couple of twists and turns brought us out onto Purple 34, which is a side street off Mauve, one of Colour's main drags. I slowed us to a fast walk and we headed up towards the intersection, keeping close into the wall. When we were twenty yards away, I stopped.

'Okay, this is where we split. Zenda, go now. Take a right up Mauve. Hue One mono station is about a block and a half. Keep your head down and walk at a normal pace. And you,' I said, bending forward to rub Spangle's nose, 'keep looking after her.'

Zenda hesitated, and then darted forward to peck me on the cheek.

'Good luck,' she said to Alkland. She looked me straight in the eyes for a moment, and then she was gone. I grabbed the Actioneer's arm and led him down the alley which cut across to 35.

'Isn't this back the way we came?' he panted.

'Yeah. Chase Psychology for Beginners.'

Head down but taking care to keep our speed near normal, we crossed the road. We'd only just reached the other side when two open-top aircars whipped into the street, taking the corner virtually on their sides. I pulled Alkland gently back and we melted into shadow.

The cars slammed to an instantaneous halt outside the apartment building. Too instantaneous, in fact: one of the passengers was nearly thrown clear of the car. Two men got out of each car and ran into the building. They all carried guns, and as they entered the lobby I caught the smallest flash of lilac from the wrist of one of them. ACIA.

'Excuse me,' said a quiet, polite voice, causing us to jump about twenty feet in the air. When we hit ground again I whirled round: there was no one there.

'Sorry to startle you,' the voice apologised, and I realised it was electronic, and coming from a tiny speaker set into the wall. 'It's just gone seven,' the street computer continued, 'and I couldn't help but notice that only one of you is wearing the regulation black jacket for this period.'

I looked at Alkland, who was of course wearing the only jacket he had with him. He looked back at me blankly, not even trying to come to terms with sartorial hassle from an unseen computer.

'It's dark blue,' I whispered. 'Won't that do?'

'Dark blue and black are entirely different things. Black is the absence of colour, whereas blue, however intermixed with black it may be, retains a definite spectroscopy.'

'Look' I said. 'I live across the street there. For reasons I'd prefer not to go into at this time, it would be great if we could just hang out here for a few moments. Then we'll go in, okay?'

There was a pause.

'Promise?'

'Yes.'

'You have a five-minute dispensation. Nice shirt, by the way.'

A tiny click signalled the end of the communication, and we waited for a couple of minutes, Alkland fretfully. Then the men reappeared, moving more slowly, but still with urgency, which depressed me slightly. There had been a distant chance that the pseudoflesh mess in the kitchen might have convinced them that the bomb had done its work and they could go home. That clearly hadn't happened.

The men stood in an intense haggle in front of the lobby for a moment, and then vaulted back into the aircars. Moving at a moderate pace one cruised down the street to our right, and the other went the other way, all four men carefully scrutinising the pavements. We watched them go, and then I turned to Alkland and led him quietly down the alley.

'Okay,' I said, 'now we know which ways they're searching. So what do we do? We go another way.'

'Ah,' he said, mollified.

The only potential problem is if they've brought a tracer for your implant with them.'

'What happens then?'

'Plan B.'

'Which is?'

'Unformed at this time,' I muttered, speeding us up a little.

Five minutes later an alternative course of action was of rather more pressing interest, was indeed the primary thing on my mind. Actually getting out of Colour was not going to be difficult: it's not like Stable. With my upwardly-revised impression of how bloody-minded the Centre was prepared to be I realised that the mono ports would now be staked out, and hoped that Zenda had made it out in time. Spangle would at least give her a legitimate excuse for being here, if not. For us, it didn't matter. The mono ports are not the only way out. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was that it looked as though the ACIA men had a tracer with them. We were about halfway to the edge of Colour, scuttling quickly down the deserted streets, when I caught sight of one of the aircars a few blocks down. It was going the other way, but according to the direction they'd set off in, it shouldn't have been there at all. I took us down yet another alley, this one so narrow that it didn't even have a name, and we stopped.

'What?' Alkland moaned.

They're tracing you.'

The Actioneer leant back against the wall, panting heavily. He looked pretty done in, and resigned. He wasn't expecting to make it out, I realised. He glanced at me wearily.

'I take it Plan B is still in its embryonic stages?'

'Pre-fertilisation, in fact.'

'I don't suppose your other lady friend, the one with the flying thing . . .'

'No. Way too far away.'

'Excuse me,' said a voice, and Alkland shrank to the side, revealing a small matt black speaker set into the matt black wall. 'It is now 7.08. Your discretionary period has elapsed. Please go inside immediately.'

'Christ,' I said desperately. 'Give us a break, will you?'

'I'm sorry' the voice said politely, 'it's out of my hands now. This is your final warning. Get indoors.'

Abruptly I realised what Plan B was. We had to run like hell. I communicated this to Alkland and we set off down the alley. At the end we dashed across the street and across into another side road. I cast a glance sideways as we ducked into the shadows, and saw exactly what I was hoping I wouldn't. About two blocks down one of the air-cars was turning our way. The tracer was homing in. I gave Alkland a shove and so nearly toppled him over that he had to run faster to prevent himself from falling flat on his face. Crude, but effective. You pick these things up.

Side streets, black pavement, darkness, the light tapping of feet moving as quickly as they can, blurred lights, the rush of air, the ache of lungs that don't need this kind of shit. Why do I know this so well? Why do I spend so much of my time escaping from things? As we pelted across another street the other aircar turned into it, only one street away. A shout signalled the fact that finally they'd spotted us in the flesh. I took us fifty yards down the alley and then hung a left in the direction of the street the aircar had come from. More chase psychology, but desperate stuff: they had an electronic device that remorselessly honed in on us. Breaking up patterns, doing the unexpected, that works when people only have patterns to go on. These guys had a little flashing light.

We stopped one side street down from the main intersection. The annoying thing was that we were actually very close now: the edge of Colour was only about a hundred yards away. Across the intersection, down some steps, around a corner, there was a gate, and beyond was Sound. They could follow us there, sure, but only on foot, and on foot I could lose them.

'Attention!' boomed an electronic voice from the wall. The polite suggestions were no more: the matter had been handed up the computer ladder. 'The improperly-dressed person must go indoors immediately.' And then, marvellously, a siren went off, to further ram home the Street Colour Co-ordinator Computer's displeasure.

'Great' wailed Alkland.

The featureless black wall we were cowering against abruptly changed colour. Huge red arrows suddenly pointed down at us, flashing on and off. We walked quickly up to the intersection and onto the street, but the arrows followed us, as did the whooping siren.

'Look' I hissed, turning to the wall, 'this is a guest, okay? He didn't know the regulations.'

'You did' admonished the wall sternly and distressingly loudly. 'You are aware of the importance of the colourless jacket period for allowing residents' hue-appreciation faculties to rest.'

'They're coming' said Alkland tonelessly. 'I can hear them shouting.'