She was only dimly aware that the fat geek was talking. His tone was petulant but edgy, his head jerking around as he tried to keep the whole room in sight at once. 'OK, no one else comes in and no one else leaves. I mean it. Anyone goes near a door, you'll be sorry. Now, everyone on the floor! Go on, down! You have to do as I say, or I'll blow you all up. I will!'

There were about forty hostages, Waller reckoned. Forty lives at stake, not to mention the property damage. Maybe not only to this building; maybe to the entire block. And the cars outside and anyone still in the surrounding office buildings and... and... Her brain was itching, buzzing, and she couldn't think about it.

'Yeah, yeah, go on. That's it, down on the floor. Down in the dirt. Grovel to me! Grovel, like I had to grovel to you all these years! And you you get that head down, Jankins, before I remember how you got that promotion by taking the credit for my work. And Miss Lieberwitz I saw what you wrote about me, don't think I didn't. Well, I'll show you "unstable".'

The bankers were obeying, one by one, in dreadful silence. Waller seethed and fretted, fingering her gun, knowing it was no use to her. She needed time to get her thoughts straight. The geek shot her a pointed glare and she dropped the weapon, showing her empty hands as she lowered herself onto her stomach.

Surrept.i.tiously, she flipped a switch on her wristmounted vidcom. There'd be bikes en route already, answering the alarm but now they'd know there was an officer in danger and they'd hear everything that went on in here.

'You might well look at me like that, Suzi Morgan,' the fat geek ranted. 'I used to like you. You could have been one of the people I let go but you know why you weren't, don't you? Do the words "parking s.p.a.ce" mean anything to you? Do I deserve nothing after thirtytwo years? Do I? Well, you all of you are the ones who have to beg me me now.' now.'

'Or you'll kill everyone in this room.'

The Doctor was still standing. The alarm bell cut out almost on cue, so that his cheerful words were the only sound to be heard, electrifying the sudden hush.

'Starting with yourself.'

'Doctor,' hissed Waller, grabbing at his ankle in an attempt to bring him down, 'this is no time to go fantasy crazy!'

'Stand up, Waller,' he said sternly. 'We can hardly have a conversation with you flat on your face, and that's all matey here wants isn't that right?'

'I... I...' the fat geek stammered. 'I just want someone to... to notice me.'

'Done that. I can safely say you've got our full attention. Now, what's so important?'

The Doctor wasn't crazy. He was a genius. He was bringing the geek down to earth, making him concentrate on the logic, the fact, of his actions. He was doing what Waller should have done, and she smarted at the realisation.

'Come on,' he chided, 'we've not got all day.'

Then he blew it in a second, with one careless question. The one that Waller had been trained never, ever to ask.

'What do you want?'

She leaped to her feet. 'Don't you dare answer that!'

The geek's eyes widened and he thrust the detonator towards her. But there was no going back now. She had to talk him down, before the Doctor could do any more harm. Forget the explosives, forget the consequences if she got this wrong. Just treat this geek as she'd treat any other.

'That's what got you into this mess,' she said firmly. 'Wanting, dreaming, imagining. You've got a job, haven't you? You can afford a flat and a TV and food. You should think about that, not about what others might have. Sure, there are people with better jobs and more money than you, but that's life. Deal with it!'

'And you think this is the right approach, do you?' murmured the Doctor.

'Listen...' began Waller more kindly, leaving a significant pause.

'Arno Finch,' said the geek in a small voice.

'Arno, I know you can't have meant for all this. I mean, when you look at what you're doing in the light of reality, it must seem... well, I bet it's hard to believe, isn't it? It must seem like fiction. Because people don't plant bombs in their workplaces or threaten entire city blocks in real life, do they? Especially not people like you, Arno people who've worked hard and obeyed the law their whole life. I know I've I've never seen it. I'm a police inspector and I've never seen anything like this. How about you, Arno? Have you ever seen it?' never seen it. I'm a police inspector and I've never seen anything like this. How about you, Arno? Have you ever seen it?'

'I... don't know. Maybe. I think... yeah, I think I saw...'

'No, Arno. In real life, I said. Think! I know it's hard to tell fact from fiction, but think! When you saw this before, when you saw someone behaving like this, you were in your flat, weren't you? You were watching the telly.'

'News,' moaned Arno Finch. 'It must have been... I can't remember, but it must have been on the news.'

'If it'd been on the news, Arno, we'd all know about it. I think you've been watching something else. You've been watching Static, haven't you?'

'No! No, I wouldn't!'

'It's all right, Arno, it's not all your fault. You're changing channels one day and Hal Gryden comes on, and you've heard so much about him and he's saying things that you want to be true, and you're curious. But you have to understand that that man has made you sick. Hal Gryden is fantasy crazy, Arno and you know how fiction spreads. You're doing it yourself. You're making people afraid, making them imagine the future, and you know where that leads. As it is, everyone in this room even the people you let go will need counselling. They'll probably have to shut the bank down. You've got your revenge, Arno.'

'I just... No. Not until they say they're sorry. Not until they promise to... to treat me better. Move my desk closer to the... the...'

'They can't, Arno. You're a bright man, you know how things are. We're only a small world. Our resources are stretched to the limit. There's no more. You have to accept that. Concentrate on the fact and forget the rest, the static.'

'But... but no, that's not true, because I've seen people, normal people like me, and they were answering questions and being given... m-money and cars and... and holidays away from this place.'

Waller shook her head, pitying him even as she despised his weakness. He wasn't the villain here. The villain had done his work, beaming his corrupting ideas into this fool's brain, and he was long gone. 'I've heard about shows like that but they're fiction too, Arno. Just like the ones that tell you not to trust the police when you know you can. You ever meet someone who's been on one of these question shows? Anyone who's won one? Can you prove they're real?'

He was sweating and shaking. He was about to make his choice: either give up or do something stupid.

'No. You can't. Then they aren't aren't real, are they?' She took a step towards him, hoping her physical presence would ground him, rea.s.sure him. Or just intimidate him she didn't mind which. As long as he was thinking about n.o.body, nothing, else. real, are they?' She took a step towards him, hoping her physical presence would ground him, rea.s.sure him. Or just intimidate him she didn't mind which. As long as he was thinking about n.o.body, nothing, else.

The geek let out a plaintive wail and tried to back away from her.

The trifle bowl slipped out from under him, and he toppled backwards off the table and fell out of Waller's sight.

Her heart leaped into her mouth. She sprang forward, straining her micromotors to the limit, knowing it was already too late.

Time seemed to freeze, possibilities suspended unrealised.

And then the room exploded and didn't explode.

It was as if Waller was living in two worlds at once, one overlaid upon the other. She could see the ballroom intact at the same time as it was blasted apart. Her way to the geek was clear and yet filled with falling, flaming masonry. People were screaming and crying and yelling for help, and that was the same in both realities.

It was just like before.

Only this time she could fight it, because she knew what it was.

The explosives had detonated/hadn't detonated. One was fact, one fiction. Waller didn't have to know which was which. In the first case, she could do nothing. The ceiling had fallen in and she was pinned. In the second...

She ignored the pains in her limbs that may or may not have been real. She vaulted over the table on which the fiction geek had been standing. She found him on his back, whimpering to himself. His eyes bulged as he saw her and he made to activate the detonator but realised he had dropped it.

Waller and the geek lunged for the black box in unison. Twenty fingers fought to be the first to close around it, but it skittered away from them all. It was brought to a halt by a battered brown shoe.

Waller's world lurched again as she looked up, not knowing what she would see, half expecting to blink and find she was trapped in the rubble, bleeding.

The Doctor scooped up the detonator, glanced at it and said cheerfully, 'TV remote control.' He flung it over his shoulder and dropped to his haunches beside them. 'Thought so, but I couldn't be sure. I had the sonic screwdriver ready to block the radio signal.' He gave Arno Finch an almost congratulatory slap on the shoulder. 'But you were just having us on, weren't you?'

His presence was like an anchor, pulling Waller back to sanity.

The nightmare fell away and she let out a breath of relief as she knew at last that the worst hadn't happened. She was alive they were all alive the building was intact and the geek was beneath her, the struggle knocked out of him. But what had the Doctor just said...?

There were no bombs! Why hadn't she realised? She had been so quick to accept that fiction, to believe in something she couldn't see for herself. She had forgotten the first rule.

Angry with herself, she rolled the geek over and spraycuffed his wrists behind his back. 'It's the Big White House for you, pal,' she snarled, 'and I hope they fry your brain for what you've done to these people, you pervert!'

She regretted her harsh words almost immediately, regretting even more the fleeting truth in them. She did did understand, beneath her frustration. She had sought out the Static channel herself once, on a cold, lonely night. She had just wanted to see. She had been lucky. She hadn't found it. The difference between her and the Arno Finches of this world, the fantasy crazy, was more slender than she cared to admit. understand, beneath her frustration. She had sought out the Static channel herself once, on a cold, lonely night. She had just wanted to see. She had been lucky. She hadn't found it. The difference between her and the Arno Finches of this world, the fantasy crazy, was more slender than she cared to admit.

'Y-you'll tell them, won't you?' the geek stammered, tears in his eyes. 'You'll tell them it wasn't my fault. I was just... just doing what they said on the TV.' The Doctor leaned over him and muttered something in his ear. Waller didn't catch the words, but they seemed to calm the geek down a little.

The bankers were picking themselves up, adjusting to their new reality those who could. Too many were still on the ground, curled into foetal b.a.l.l.s, sobbing.

'You see what I mean now?' Waller said to the Doctor.

'Yeah, I do.'

'This is what Gryden does. This is why he's so dangerous. This TV station of his, it's making people greedy, teaching them to disrespect authority.'

'Yeah, it is.'

'He's driving them crazy!'

'I've misjudged you, Inspector Waller. I thought you were the monster here.'

He bounced to his feet while Waller was still gaping. 'There are no monsters, Doctor,' she spluttered.

'Yeah, there are,' he said. 'Some of them are just better at hiding than others. And then there're the ones we wouldn't know if we saw them. C'mon, we're going.'

He set off at a jog as if he expected Waller to follow and somehow, maddeningly, she found herself doing just that.

'Where to?' she cried after him, helplessly.

'Big White House,' he called back over his shoulder. 'I want to see what happens next.'

FIVE.

"Scuse me, guv, you got a credit for a cold beer?'

Captain Jack hadn't seen the tramp slumped in a nest of cardboard in the doorway of a boardedup shop. He'd been distracted by an advertising h.o.a.rding across the street, on which a tin of toothpaste was depicted beside the slogan 'Not Quite as Effective at Plaque Removal as the Market Leader, But It Costs a Bit Less'. He was beginning to see what Domnic had meant about the problems of selling on this world.

'I'm having these visions, see, keep dreaming I'm one of them rich businessmen. I need the booze to numb my brain before I go fantasy crazy.'

Jack grinned. 'I like your sales pitch.'

The tramp looked up at him, forlorn in his layers of tatty clothing. 'Just telling the truth, guv. Wouldn't have me do less, would you?'

'I got no cash, though, sorry.' The tramp looked so downcast that Jack couldn't help but reach out to him. 'Here, come with me. I'll get you a meal and a hot drink or something.'

'Rather have a beer. Thought you said you had no money.'

'I'll use my imagi I mean, I'll find a way.'

The tramp took the proffered hand and let Jack lift him to his feet. He was shorter than the American and his stooped shoulders made him seem shorter still. He was getting on a bit, his hair thinning and his beard white, but his eyes were bright and alert.

'Knew you'd help me, guv,' he wheezed gratefully, 'soon as I saw your clothes. You're not one of the drones. You're a thinker. I'm a thinker too.'

Jack just nodded, remembering the last 'thinker' he had encountered.

He remembered the horror he'd felt as Domnic had leaped out of his grasp at knowing it would take the young man long, agonising seconds to die and that he could do nothing but watch him fall.

Then Domnic's flailing hand had hit the antigravity updraught of the fireescape cage, attached to the wall a few metres away, and horror had turned to amazement.

His momentum had been stolen. Drifting like a feather, Domnic had somersaulted into the confines of the cage's three vertical bars. Then he had fallen again, faster than before but with the promise of a gentle landing.

Jack had had all of two seconds to think about following, but the leap was too far: the cage was meant to be accessed from the roof, not from here. Suicidal he may not have been after all, but Domnic had still taken one h.e.l.l of a risk.

Jack couldn't work out why. One moment, he'd been happy to talk, apparently glad to have found two kindred spirits. The next... It was as if he'd become paranoid, imagining the worst of them and believing it. As if the people who ran this world were right and dreams were were dangerous. dangerous.

Perhaps they were, to people unused to dreaming.

The sun was rising over the grey buildings, but it was a cold day and the sky was heavy with cloud. The roads were clogged as usual, and the pavements were packed too: people with grey jumpsuits and grey faces, keeping their heads down as they marched to work. The hoverjets of stalled vehicles kicked up grey dust, which swirled around the pedestrians' ankles. Domnic was right, thought Jack: this was a black and white world.

'I'm looking for someone,' he said. 'Hal Gryden. Runs a TV station. Heard of him?'

The tramp shrugged. 'You won't find many as haven't heard of Hal Gryden. Probably seen him too, if they're honest. They say his son was picked up on a minor storytelling charge, sent to the Big White House. Took his own life, he did. That's why Gryden hates the system.'

That tallied with what Jack already knew. After Domnic had run off into the night, he and Rose had spent two hours surfing the Ethernet back at the hotel, in a little cubbyhole behind reception. The night manager had given them a code card and added a charge to their account. They'd found an address for Domnic Allen easily enough, and thousands of mentions of Hal Gryden, but no concrete information. If he had had been a businessman as Domnic had claimed, if he'd ever had a listed address or a vidphone number, they could find no trace of it. been a businessman as Domnic had claimed, if he'd ever had a listed address or a vidphone number, they could find no trace of it.

'Hal Gryden. That can't be his real name, can it?'

'Reckon not,' said the tramp. 'So they say, anyway. I hear a lot, I do. Keep my ear to the ground.'

'You ever hear his real name? Or how to find him?'

'Saw him on the infoscreen at the end there, few weeks ago. He cut in on RTV 4 for a minute. Bounced his signal off their own satellite, so they say. Clever fellow. You ask me, if anyone can save this world it's him.'

'Everyone must know his face,' said Jack. 'How can he hide?'

'You get me a beer, I'll tell you everything I know.'

'You old fraud!' Jack grinned. 'You don't know a thing, do you?'

'I tell no word of a lie, guv.'