"You awake now, Crewcut?" Barnie asked.
"Yes. I…"
"You were out cold. All of you were. When's the last time you slept?"
"Slept…" I couldn't remember. "What time is it?"
The woman answered. "Half two."
I jerked upright then, out of the chair's soft embraces. "Half two! Is that afternoon or morning?"
The woman laughed.
"It's the afternoon, Scribb. You dumbo!" This from the older kid on the floor, whose name was Mandy.
"You want to dig into that food, Crew?" asked Barnie.
I did. It was ages since I'd eaten.
"Where's Beetle?" I asked.
"Beetle's in the bedroom," Barnie told me. "This is our home, and this is my wife… Lucinda." The woman smiled. Her mouth was wide and opulent. "And this is our child, Crystal." At these words from Barnie, the young girl pulled her face from the screen for a second, to give me a smile.
I started on the good food, feeling it ease my need. I could feel food dribbling down my chin, and I suppose I must have looked a little bit of a mess. "I can't stay here," I mumbled through a big mouthful. "I'm in a hurry." Some oil was dripping off my chin. I had to get back to Brid and the Thing. That was all that counted. But I didn't even know where I was.
"You fell asleep in the chair, Crew," Barnie said. "We didn't like to distrub you."
"This is our home," Lucinda added. "You are most welcome."
"Have I seen you before?" I asked her.
"Oh, most probably." She smiled again. She had a perfect face. So did Barnie. The child also. They were all smiles. The room where they lived was a hive of comfort. The paintings on the wall told the same story; half naked women coyly glancing, horses leaping the waves, swans gliding down rivers of gold, big-eyed puppy dogs chewing on stolen slippers. The room was drenched in age-old colours.
Just then the television family got one too many questions wrong, and Noel's Spew Tank started to fall. It covered them in gunge, and they loved it. The audience roared their approval. The kids on the rug following suit.
And it suddenly came to me that not even I had done this before; never seen Noel, Saville, or Daniels. All this is way before my time. I'd just seen the reruns. So what was going down? And why was I going down with it?
Dj Vurt.
That's the name of the feeling you get sometimes, in Vurt, when you've done this one already, but you're in the Vurt anyway, remember? And you're thinking it's real. So a loop is made in the head, and it becomes a kind of Haunting. Memories of your previous trips start to play on the feather dreams, shifting them out of phase, like a feedback wave. Maybe this was the answer. I'm in a Vurt, getting a real cool Haunting.
"It's not a real television," Barnie said. "It's just pre-recorded tapes."
"This isn't real," I shouted. "It's just not real!"
"That's right," he answered, as though proud of it, before lifting up his arm to me, and with the other hand he peeled off a section of the flesh, showing me the workings underneath.
"This is what I am," he said.
I was looking into this hole in his skin, gazing into a pool of wet plastic; the nanogerms popping along the veins of his blood, the synthetic bones flexing as he lowered and raised his arm for me. "This is what I am," he said again, slow this time, with a hint of sadness, like he'd left something behind, something human.
Robo! Barnie was a robo. A robochef!
"Inside of here," he said, tapping his tight skull, "are all the best recipes of all the best chefs on this world. I am their depository."
As though in response to this, the young child, Crystal, ripped some flesh off the back of her neck. It was almost like she was playing, it meant that much to her.
"This is Roboville, Crew," Barnie said. "I think the pure call it Toytown, isn't that right?"
"Don't let Barnie scare you," Lucinda was saying, but it was too late for all that. I was almost retching.
The roboman took a step towards me. "Isn't it funny?" he said. "The way that the pure react to robo? You'd think we were dirty or something, given their reaction." I didn't know about that, only that I had to get some distance between us, back to where Shadow and Thing were waiting.
"Tell me the way out of here," I asked. "Got something to do."
"Don't think that's possible," said Barnie. "Beetle's in a bad way."
"He isn't that pure," Lucinda said. Was she referring to me, or to the Beetle?
And I saw myself in a boat on the water, watching the shore, useless gun in hand, watching Tristan getting dragged down by the cops, heading for the station. Where they turn the screws on your feelings, until you can't feel any more. It wasn't a Vurt. It wasn't a dream. The world was real, and my eyes were wet from it.
Oh for a little less Vaz in my life, and a touch of glue. Maybe then I could stick hold tight of somebody.
The kids were laughing out loud at the television family's misfortune and I didn't know what was real any more.
There were chains and handcuffs arranged along the walls of the bedroom. A collection of whips lay spread out on a bedside cabinet.
Beetle was strapped to the bed, with six strong tethers. He was flat on his back, and the colours were pouring out of his skin in blades of light. Seemed like half his body was taken over by now, alive with fractals.
"Scribble! My babe!" he said. "Good to see you up and about. You gonna loosen these ties a little? I feel like walking some."
"I guess not." The virus was getting to his mind now, making him feel like a super hero. "It's for your own good, Bee. Don't want you jumping off tall buildings."
"Yeah! That's me. The Shining Man. That Barnie did a real good job. Hey, maybe he's a bondage freak! You seen his wife, Scribb?"
"I saw her."
"That is one sexy player! Remember that one?"
"Remember what?"
"Shit, babe, you don't recall that one? How could you forget that dream? Maybe you're all shrivelled up. I read that happened, sometimes, you didn't use it enough."
"Do you know what's happening, Beetle?" I asked.
"Happening? The world's happening. And I am a major player. And if you don't undo these ropes, Scribble… I'm just going to flow right under them anyway. I'm floating, babe! You cotton me?"
Yeah. I got it.
"I know the final score, kid," he continued, his voice changing, becoming quiet, serious. "That shecop bitch really laid one on me. I guess this is cheerio time. Shit, babe, but I feel good! That's the twister."
"It does that to you," I said, just as quiet. And his colours were burning on my face. My tears were warm as they trickled down my skin, evaporating in the glare.
"I know it, Scribb. But you know what else? I feel like going out and stealing back shadowgirl and the alien. I feel like going out strong. In a blaze. You got that?"
"Coming soon, the Beetle," I whispered. "Coming real soon."
He kind of nodded then, like he wasn't really there. "Don't lose Mandy," he said, at last.
"I won't." His fingers were hot as I clenched my hand around them, feeling the colours shifting freely, back and forth between us.
But I kept my hand there anyway, taking the heat.
Which was like taking hold of spectrums.
I wash away the dirt of days, dry my skin, and take a long stare at what I look like these days. My face coming back at me, reflected in a bathroom mirror.
I peel back the lids and skin of my left eye. I move closer to the mirror, directly under the sink light. I stare into my own eyes, looking for clues.
"Found anything?" The soft honey voice from behind my shoulder. I spin around, almost banging into her. Her body was close to mine, and again I felt that memory conning back. I was trying to pin it down, explain it, but the best I could manage made it into a memory of something that had never happened. "Don't you like us?" the voice said.