'Me too,' said Mona. 'If it hadn't been for the Supernaturalists, I'd be an oil slick by the side of a racetrack somewhere.'Stefan shook his head. 'The time has come for me to wake up. My mother has gone, I have to accept that.'

Mona jumped to her feet. 'We can't just give in, Stefan! You know what our destiny is. We fight these things until we can't fight any more. Tell him, Ditto.'

The Bartoli Baby's eyes were downcast.

'Maybe the boss is right,' he said. 'Maybe we should call it a day.'

Mona threw her hands in the air. 'I don't believe this. One operation goes bad and everybody falls apart.'

Ditto lit a sim-cig. 'Falls apart? That's not it, Mona. That's not it at all. We gave it our best shot, but it's like trying to mop up the ocean with a tissue. Who says we can't be happy like ordinary people for a while?'

Mona's face was red with anger. 'Normal people are being sucked dry by these creatures, only they don't know it. You want to watch and do nothing while the Parasites go about their business?'

Stefan caught Mona gently by the shoulders.

'It's not what I want. But we're beaten. We're a bunch of kids. What can we do?'

'Myishi are with us now,' whispered Mona. 'We have the Energy Pulse and the Parabola.'

'It doesn't work. It's never worked. It took me a long time to see it, but I see now.'

'A pity about that Parabola,' said Cosmo thoughtfully, almost to himself.

Mona turned from Stefan. 'What do you mean, Cosmo?'

'Something Professor Faustino said. The Parasites often feed on electrical energy.

I bet if we found energy leaks, we'd find Parasites.' He rested his chin on one hand.

'If only we had a bigger dish.'

Mona ran to the nearest window, tearing back the heavy curtains.

'Myishi have a pretty big dish,' she said, pointing to the stars. 'One more shot, Stefan. One more try.'

Stefan's resignation cracked like a mudpack, revealing the old determination underneath.

'Ditto,' he said. 'Where's my phone?'

'Absolutely not,' said Ellen Faustino.

Stefan couldn't believe what he was hearing.'Professor Faustino. All I'm asking for is a data port on the Satellite. One plug-in, what can that hurt?'

Faustino's face was grim on the phone screen. 'The Satellite is off-limits, Stefan, even to me. I'm only president of research. I couldn't get a job scrubbing the floor on the Satellite.'

The phone's handset almost cracked in Stefan's hand.

'Fine, you run the scan. A concentration of energy leaks in the city centre, that's all I'm looking for.'

Faustino consulted a digital diary on her desk. 'That's a much better idea. I can get a slot in a couple of months.'

'A couple of months! Do you have any idea how many people will be sucked dry in a couple of months?'

'I can't help it,' protested Ellen, swivelling her digital diary so Stefan could see the screen. 'Look at the clients we have waiting: Nike, Disney, Krom. The Satellite costs millions per uplink. Do you realize the advertising power of a single broadcast?

There's a five-year waiting list for Satellite time. A couple of months is the absolute earliest I can get in, and even then I'll be calling in every favour I'm owed.'

Stefan struggled to stay calm. 'How am I supposed to deploy your Energy Pulse, if I can't locate the Parasites?'

Faustino was unfazed. 'Stefan, this entire operation is clandestine. Un-Spec 4 does not exist. Neither does the modified Energy Pulse. Neither, for that matter, do you or your vigilante band. What do you want me to do? Go to Head Office with a story about spooky blue creatures that are scrubbing energy?'

'No,' admitted Stefan, scowling into the phone's screen. 'I suppose not. But what do you want me to do?'

'I want you to find another way,' said Ellen Faustino.

Stefan closed the handset.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'I will.'

BOOSHKA REGION, past the Blockade, Satellite City Mona steered the Pigmobile through the teeming life of Booshka. Technically she shouldn't have been driving manually at all, but there wouldn't be any police down here to check her licence, or lack of it. The night-time gangs had been replaced by throngs of ordinary peaceful people. In the pale blue daylight, life went on as it did all over the world. Whatever their circ.u.mstances, people still had to eat, live and love.Stalls sprang up along the side of the road like magicians' tables. African tailors rubbed elbows with Oriental hackers and European shoemakers. Trade was brisk and haggling was lively.

Cosmo watched the world go by from his seat in the Pigmobile.

'It's not a bad place to live.'

'In the daytime,' said Stefan. 'And it will be a lot better if Professor Faustino can get her welfare grants back online.'

Ditto was checking his chin in a small mirror. Hoping for some bristles. 'Sure.

Which is why we're doing this behind her back.'

'Professor Faustino is on the inside,' said Stefan. 'She has to follow the rules; we don't. If the Supernaturalists can take care of the Parasite problem, the Satellite stabilizes and the welfare grants will flow. Everybody's happy.'

'Especially Myishi,' said Ditto, pocketing the mirror. 'I think it's very nice of us to do their job for them, especially since they've been trying to kill us for years.'

Mona yelled back from the driving seat. 'Do you have any better ideas, Ditto? Do you?' She gave him a full five seconds to reply. 'No? I thought not.'

'I never do. It's just healthy scepticism,' said the Bartoli Baby. 'We can't all be sheep. This entire situation stinks. Suddenly we're working for the corporations. I don't like it.'

'I don't like it much either,' said Stefan, 'but Professor Faustino is my friend first, and corporation second. We can trust her.'

'Are you sure? Would you bet all our lives on it?'

'The only life I'm betting on in future is my own. Once we track the Parasites to their lair, I'll be the one setting the Energy Pulse. From today on, you kids are computer jockeys.'

Mona nearly crashed the Pigmobile. 'Kids? Who are you calling a kid? You're only a couple of years older than us. If I'm old enough to run around rooftops, I'm old enough to set Energy Pulses. I'm not here to watch things on a monitor.'

'You will be involved, from a safe distance. And if you don't like the new arrangement, stop the van and get out. I'm sure the Sweethearts would be really happy to welcome you back.'

Mona jammed her foot on the accelerator. 'You know something, Stefan, sometimes you can be a real pig.'

They drove for over three hours until the Pigmobile was skirting Satellite City's ring road. Next stop, the desert. Cosmo could see the end of the city and it fascinated him. There was an end to the city? For some reason, he had always imagined the entire city to be a giant prison. And even if you did leave, how did people survive out here in the countryside?

This was not like the countryside you saw in old vids. There were no horses galloping in slow motion, and no swings hanging from the trees. In fact there weren't many trees. Most plant life this close to the city had been killed off by chemical smog or factory overspill.

Here, the people existed outside the Satellite's footprint and free from its influences. Most of the inhabitants lived in small one-storey dwellings cobbled together from whatever material was likely to stay upright for the longest time. To Cosmo, the houses seemed wildly exotic. After a lifetime of pig iron, it was refreshing to see walls constructed from reinforced highway bridges, and roofs made from old billboards.

Ditto shuddered. 'This place gives me the creeps. You know they don't have Satellite TV here. Some houses only have ten or fifteen pirate stations. What do they do all day?'

'Stay alive,' said Stefan, pointing at a mountain of junk in the distance. 'Over there, Mona. That's where we're going.'

As they drew closer, Cosmo realized that the junk mountain was actually a fenced- in yard filled to overflowing with discarded rubbish from the city. Two armed guards stood in the shade of a covered tower, their weapons as ancient as everything they were guarding.

Mona stopped the Pigmobile before decorated iron gates that had, in a previous life, been the entrance to a theme park ride called Dino Doom.

Stefan opened the side door, stepping into the heat and dust. There were two rifles trained on him from above.

'You'd better keep on truckin', kid,' said one of the guards. An emaciated specimen with no more than three teeth. 'Lessen you got sumfin' worth tradin'. Never mind whut the gate says, this ain't no fun park.'

'Shut up and listen,' said Stefan with his usual tact. 'I need to see Lincoln. Tell him it's Bashkir. And if this gate is not open in two minutes then I'm holding you responsible.'

The guard thought about arguing, until Stefan glanced pointedly at his watch. Then he decided to go and get Lincoln. If this tall youth wanted someone to be mad at, the guard would prefer that it wasn't him. There was something about those piercing eyes and the twisted scar stretching his mouth.

The second guard spat after his workmate.

'Run like a rabbit, chicken boy. You ain't got the spine of a lugworm.' Obviously the man was fond of animal imagery.

Stefan climbed back into the car. 'I think we're in.'

'Must be your charming personality,' said Mona, still sore over the Stop the van and get out comment.

'Now when we get in there, I want everybody to be extremely careful. Did you ever see those movies about the Wild West, where gunfights get started over the least little thing.'

Cosmo nodded.

'Well the Junkyard is like that, except with real bullets. Ditto, you're a kid until I say so.'

Ditto groaned. 'Aw, Stefan. I hate being a kid.'

'We might need an ace up our sleeves. You're it.'

Considerably less than two minutes later the Dino gates swung open, manned on each side by one of the strange guards. Seen at close range, Cosmo realized that the men were much better seen at a distance.

'Bring that sucker in, Mistuh Bashkeer. Park 'er in front of the lobby.'

'Whooeee,' said the other. 'You sure are one hog-ugly critter.'

Cosmo didn't know if the man was talking to the Pigmobile or his own reflection.

Then again, he was in no position to sneer at other people. His own head was no oil painting since Ditto had patched it up, although at least now there was some stubble to cover the lumps.

Mona steered through an a.s.sault course of automobile skeletons, parking in front of a porch constructed from rusting satellite dishes. The lobby, apparently.

'Remember,' said Stefan to Ditto, 'act immature.'

Mona laughed. 'Act? Just be yourself, Ditto. n.o.body will notice the difference.'

The ugly twins escorted them through a curtain of nuts and bolts threaded on to copper wire. Inside was even dirtier than outside. Every inch of surface was coated with a pungent mixture of oil, dirt and rust. Millions of rust mites flourished in the ceiling, their activities sending rust flakes fluttering down like robot moths.

Behind a desk constructed from storage pallets sat a man, clearly at ease in the filth. His feet were propped on the desk, bare toes being licked by an obese ginger cat.

'Nice cat,' noted Stefan. 'What's his name?'

'Camouflage,' answered the man. 'When this cat shuts his eyes, you couldn't find him in here with a pack of bloodhounds.'

Stefan swiped the man's feet from the desk, sitting opposite him. The cat hissed, running along the man's leg to his stomach.

'I see you don't believe in manners.''Manners won't buy you much in the Big Pig or beyond it, Lincoln.'

Lincoln's face was gaunt with bags under his eyes, like melted flesh. He could have been any age and of any race, though his accent was decidedly upper cla.s.s. He wore a three-piece, pin-striped suit; unfortunately it was at least twenty years old.

'You know my name, boy, but I don't know who you are. You used the name of a friend of mine to get in here, but you are certainly not Doctor Aeriel Bashkir.'

'I'm her son, Stefan. She told me about you.'

Lincoln studied him for a moment. 'Yes, you have her eyes. How is your mother?'

Stefan dropped his gaze. 'She died. Three years ago.'

Lincoln was silent for several moments. 'I'm sorry to hear that. She was a good woman.'

'She was. From what she told me, you owe her a favour.'

Lincoln laughed. His teeth were the same colour as the rest of him. 'Perhaps. But I certainly don't owe you any favours, dear boy. Favours are non-transferable.'

Stefan put his elbows on the desk. 'Lincoln, five years ago my mother travelled out of the city and took out your ruptured appendix. No other doctor in the city would have done that. While she was here, she saw a HALO going up. She told me all about it. We both know that you're the pirate who has been sending up illegal HALOs for years, without any permits, safety or otherwise. One call from me and the Myishi privates would be cutting this place into cubes with s.p.a.ce lasers. And the ugly twins here would be absolutely no help.'

Lincoln was unimpressed. 'You've met Floyd and Bruce. They're my boys. I took them in off the street when they were barely out of nappies. I believe they were twenty-six at the time. Stupid as rocks, poor fellows, but they certainly can shoot. As a matter of fact they have big old bolt guns pointed at your head right now.'

'Oh really?' said Stefan. 'Well, I'd advise them to look down.'

'Look down?' said Floyd. 'You wouldn't be tryin' to take our eyes offa the target, would you?'

'You must think we were born last Tuesday,' added Bruce, his voice whistling slightly through the gaps in his teeth. 'We got you all covered. You and the two juvies.'

'What about the baby?' asked Stefan.

Floyd snickered. 'What about him. What's he gonna do? Spit up all over us?'