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'They're worse,' said the border guard. 'They keep it out of the papers because it looks bad for the Government. Mr Doveston wouldn't look quite so good if the public knew about this place. It's like a black hole of crime. I'm not messing with you. Turn back now. Take the young lady far away from here. They're animals in there, there's no telling what they'd do to her. Well actually there is.'

'We're going back,' said Derek.

'We're not,' said Kelly.

'Don't be absurd. I'm not taking you in there.'

Tm not afraid.'

'Well I hate to admit it, but I am.'

'Then I'll go in alone.'

'Why?' asked Derek. 'You don't even know my aunty.'

'This is nothing to do with your aunty, Derek. This is something big. And if there is one little ounce of manhood inside you, you'll come in with me. I'll go in alone, if you don't.'

'It's your funeral,' said the border guard. 'If they ever find your body, that is.'

'Back,' said Derek.

'Forward,' said Kelly.

Forward apparently had it.

Derek drove slowly through the deserted streets.

'I can't believe this place,' he said. 'I mean this is South London. I know South London can be a bit rough, but this is over the top. Look at it, burnt-out shops, burnt-out cars, the only buildings standing are barred up like fortresses. This can't be real. It can't be.'

'There is something very very wrong about this place,' said Kelly.

'Yes, I can see that plainly enough.'

'But can you feel it?'

'I feel very very afraid. I really need the toilet, but I think I'll wait until I get home. If I get home at all.'

'Pull up here,' said Kelly.

'Here? Why here?'

'Because there's a stinger strung out across the road ahead, under all that debris. You don't really want to drive over it.'

'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.

6

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.