"Noo," Bisquitine intoned in her deep, masculine-sounding voice. "But quate appy to use this poor damaged creatchah for your own dimmed ign.o.ble ends, midim. Ain't dat de trute!"

"Bisq, shh!"

"Poor damaged creatchah, poor damaged creatchah..."

They had climbed almost to the summit of the Rialto, the crowds growing ever thicker and more chaotic. Madame d'Ortolan grasped Mrs Siankung's arm. "Is he here here?"

Bisquitine stopped suddenly, did a little dance and with one arm straight out pointing said triumphantly, "Bingo! Bandits ahoy, chumlets! Thar she blows!"

Adrian So I'm standing here at the very top of the very middle bit of the Rialto in Venice, feeling like a bit of a muppet and wondering what the chances are that this is some gigantic long-winded, long-game wind-up. (Except it can't be, can it? All that monthis as standard instruction ey over the years was real enough, and the box Mrs M sent and Fred asked me to bring didn't show up in my hand luggage when I went through Heathrow security, did it? Sailed past.) But anyway, that isn't stopping me from getting that What-the-f.u.c.k-am-I-doing-here? feeling, even though, yes, it's all very lovely in a sunny, chocolate-boxy, can't-move-for-bleedin-tourists kind of a way, and here I go having to step away from the very top of the very centre bit yet again because yet another group of j.a.panese or Chinese or whatever tourists want to take a photograph of one of them standing at exactly that point, when this little bunch of frankly not very well dressed people come marching up the steps from the opposite direction I arrived from.

There's a mousy bint in a white dressing gown in the middle of them, hair straggling everywhere, muttering to herself. Proper nutter. Then she sees me and sort of jogs on the spot and points and blabbers something, just as I feel a hand on my elbow, cupping it like a brandy gla.s.s but I don't know which way to look because this lot with the lady in white at their centre are all f.u.c.king looking at me now and starting up the slope towards me while the person behind me holding my elbow says quietly, "Adrian? I'm Fred."

The Transitionary Adrian turns to me and his expression and body language changes instantly. "Tem, my darling man," he says.

I stare at him, then look beyond him to where the others are, the small group intermittently visible through the swirl of people coming and going and chattering and laughing on the bridge. This group includes Madame d'Ortolan, Professore Loscelles and the frightening weirdness of the presence that has been blocking my new-found abilities for the last half-hour. Except she isn't blocking them any more. Not since the instant that somebody different stepped into Adrian's shoes.

The approaching group is six or seven metres away, hurrying raggedly towards us.

"Tem, my love," Adrian says. "I believe you're free to do something now. I think you'd better do it. Leave Madame d'O. I need to talk to her."

I can't approach the girl's mind. The rest the people who attend her, the Prof, the muscle boys and the specialist adepts, including a guy called Kleist who's hurrying towards the group from the street behind them I can work with. They all become convinced they really are tourists and just wander off to look at the lovely views. I work the same trick with the rest of the intervention teams, all of whom had been ordered to about-turn and are in the process of converging on the Rialto. The group in the launch currently exceeding the speed limit back up the Grand Ca.n.a.l to a wavelike chorus of shouts and horns, and almost at the Rialto unanimously decide to visit Burano for ice creams, though they'll be pulled over by a police launch near the railway station a few minutes later anyway.

Meanwhile, all l'Expedience people who were carrying weapons have picked them out of their pockets with looks of puzzled distaste and, holding them by thumb and finger, disposed of them. Four Tasers and six handguns have splashed into ca.n.a.ls, to join all the other secrets the waves have hidden over the centuries. The whole fragre of the locality relaxes distinctly.

For a few moments, Madame d'Ortolan is left bewildered. Then she starts shouting furiously at her people as they saunter away wide-eyed, smiling, ignoring her. "Mr Kleist! Loscelles! Mr Kleist Kleist!"

Only Bisquitine remains unaffected, looking bemused as the people around her disperse. "Rum to-do," she muses, and picks her nose. "Business elsewhere, Mr Rumblebunk, I'll be bound."

So I have time to ask Adrian, "Mrs M?"

She makes Adrian bow. "Indeed. h.e.l.lo, Tem. Glad you jumped the way you did. Welcome aboard."

"You can do this? Flit to somebody who's already been transitioned?"

She spreads Adrian's arms, "Patently. Well, when it was me who popped their transitioning cherry, anyway. Good trick, eh? I've been developing my talents. So have you, obviously. Congratulations."

"The people on the list?"

"Safe. I got to all of them first." She winks at me. "It'll cost ya."

"And what now?"

"I'm afraid you have to go, my love." She feels inside the jacket, pulls out the box that Adrian brought from London and gives it to me. "Take this and get well away, Tem. I mean, well well away, untraceably distant." She glances round to see Madame d'Ortolan looking undecided, then, with a word and a nod to the girl in the white robe, start towards us again. She turns back. "No matter what happens here, you need to disappear. Whoever controls the Concern, even if it's the good guys, chances are they'll want to find you and take your mind to bits to find out how you can flit without septus. Or they'll just kill you." She smiles, nods at the box. "Soon you won't need that." Again, she glances briefly towards Madame d'Ortolan, who is having to push a party of laughing Chinese girls out of the way to get to us. "Now go," she says, closing my fingers round the box. "You've done all you can. This is my show now. I hope I see you again. Go." She places a finger briefly on my lips, then turns away to face Madame d'Ortolan. away, untraceably distant." She glances round to see Madame d'Ortolan looking undecided, then, with a word and a nod to the girl in the white robe, start towards us again. She turns back. "No matter what happens here, you need to disappear. Whoever controls the Concern, even if it's the good guys, chances are they'll want to find you and take your mind to bits to find out how you can flit without septus. Or they'll just kill you." She smiles, nods at the box. "Soon you won't need that." Again, she glances briefly towards Madame d'Ortolan, who is having to push a party of laughing Chinese girls out of the way to get to us. "Now go," she says, closing my fingers round the box. "You've done all you can. This is my show now. I hope I see you again. Go." She places a finger briefly on my lips, then turns away to face Madame d'Ortolan.

Mrs Mulverhill The angry-looking woman in the orange velour jumpsuit walks up to the man in the tan jacket, ignoring the jostling crowds and the wash of humanity pressing in from all sides. The girl in the white towelling robe trails vaguely after her, still digging into her nose with the one remaining fingernail she hasn't broken or cracked in the hours since she found herself in this body. She sighs. "Still hungry," she mutters. She finds something up her nose and eats it. Success! Chewy and and salty. salty.

Madame d'Ortolan stands in front of Mrs Mulverhill, close enough for the veloured b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly of her current incarnation to touch Adrian's shirt, open jacket, jeans. She stares into the grey-green eyes.

"h.e.l.lo, Theodora," Mrs Mulverhill says, in Adrian's pleasantly deep voice. "How's tricks?" Madame d'Ortolan tries to take Adrian's wrists in her hands but finds her own wrists grasped. "I don't think so, Theodora. Let's stay here and discuss this like civilised people, shall we?"

"What in the holy f.u.c.k are are you, Mulverhill?" you, Mulverhill?"

"Just a concerned citizen of the Concern, Theodora." Mrs Mulverhill uses Adrian's face to smile over Madame d'Ortolan at the girl in the white robe.

Bisquitine waves back with one finger. "Sui amazaro. Climb ev'ry woman. Ah belong to you you, Underground."

"You hypocritical b.i.t.c.h."

"Oh, now, Theodora, I'm not the one trying to murder my way to absolute power within the Central Council. You might have noticed your loyalists have gone unharmed."

"Really? What about Harmyle?"

"Oh, he was a traitor so many times over that I'm not sure even he knew who he was betraying at the end. He was a disloyalist. I think offing him was just to get your attention."

"You think. Let's ask Oh himself, shall we?" Madame d'Ortolan struggles to free her hands, in vain.

"The point is I could have murdered them all in their sleep if I'd wanted to. But then I'm not you. I'm going to stay an outsider."

"You'll stay dead when we kill you."

"You'd have to catch me first, which you have signally failed to do so far."

"Try flitting now, then."

"Oh, I know, so close to your little friend here, we're all stuck with what we've got."

"And with their vulnerabilities," Madame d'Ortolan hisses, and tries to knee Adrian's body in the b.a.l.l.s. Mrs Mulverhill turns Adrian to one side, still gripping Madame d'Ortolan's wrists. The velour-padded knee thuds into the side of Adrian's thigh.

"Ow! Now, Theodora: civilised, remember?"

"Eye bee eye bee for eye for-oh," Bisquitine sings. "It's all idiotic nonsense. Mama's little baby loves shortbus, shortbus." She is standing quite close behind Madame d'Ortolan. She sticks her tongue out the side of her mouth, extends one index finger and pokes Madame d'Ortolan in the small of her orange-clad back. "Me belly finks me froat's cut. Wot's a gel to do then, sing for me suppa? I should cocoa, coco. Let me tell you."

Madame d'Ortolan whirls round as best she can with her wrists still held and spits, "Do not not touch me!" touch me!"

Bisquitine takes a step back and folds her arms, looking grumpy. "Leiplig!" she growls. "My war chariot! At once, d'you hear!"

Madame d'Ortolan turns and presses further into Adrian, who tenses as Mrs Mulverhill holds her ground. Madame d'Ortolan goes on tiptoe to put her mouth as close as she can to Adrian's ear. "If I had a gun I'd blow your brains out the top of your f.u.c.king head."

"Jings. We'll take that rifle now, Chuck."

Mrs Mulverhill makes Adrian sigh. "You're not entirely comfortable with this whole 'civilised' concept, are you, Theodora?"

"Why are you doing this, Mulverhill? You could have been on the Council years ago. There'd have been peace, a pardon. No grudges. We're pragmatists and you're gifted. You made your point. What more can you want?"

"Give up this day our Mendelbrot."

"All this is tired, Theodora," Adrian's voice says. Mrs Mulverhill uses Adrian's face to smile at a couple of pa.s.sing nuns, monochrome punctuations amidst the colourful throng. "And keeping me talking while your teams come groggily back to their senses isn't going to work. In the meantime our man Tem is getting away, and anyway, your little chum there is ticking down to zero." She nods at Bisquitine, who is staring intently at the back of Madame d'Ortolan's head.

"Und dat is dat und vat noo? Termine, termine."

"Let me worry about her."

"I wish you had, but it's too late now," Adrian's voice says with every appearance of resignation and sadness. "Madam, I don't think you realise what you've unleashed here."

"And you do, of course."

"Yes. Like Tem, I can see round corners."

"We'll get him."

"Too late, I got to him long ago."

"I bet you did, my sweet."

"My finest pupil. Though it was you who really brought him on. All those missions. Were Were you trying to kill him?" you trying to kill him?"

"Yes."

Mrs Mulverhill raises one of Adrian's eyebrows. "Well," she observes drily, "there's blowback for you. Between us we've made him something very special. He'll go far."

"Urry up please, it's time."

"It won't be far enough. We'll get him."

"Soon there will be no 'we,' Theodora. You will be on your own, exiled."

"We'll see about that, too."

"I don't mean just from the Council. I'm talking about what she's about to do." She nods at Bisquitine again. "She can make solipsists of us all. You'll never see Calbefraques again, Theodora."

Madame d'Ortolan smiles humourlessly. "You aren't frightening me, my sweet."

"Theodora, it's settled. This is already over. I can see the ways forward from here and they all-"

"Go to f.u.c.k!" Madame d'Ortolan shouts as she struggles again to free her hands. Mrs Mulverhill keeps Adrian's body turned to the side, protecting his groin.

Bisquitine rolls her eyes. "Excuse your being French. I'll thank you to keep a civil lung in your chest. Oy! I is posimitively Biafric here, missus wumin. Do I look facking Effiopian? You caahnt." Madame d'Ortolan ignores her.

Inside Adrian's head, Mrs Mulverhill can still sense Tem's presence. She has a sudden vision of him standing at the bar of a cafe, just out of Bisquitine's damping range. He's draining an espresso, quickly. She can feel the various Concern people starting to remember who and where they were, and why. Then Tem's presence winks out. "Bless you," she murmurs.

"What?"

"Help me, General Betrayus, you're my only hope."

"Nothing. What's it all been for, Theodora? Apart from power."

"You know what it's all been for."

She smiles. "I think I do, now. But you can't hold it back for ever."

"Yes, I can. There are a lot of for evers. They add up. And it's all all about power, you f.u.c.kwit b.i.t.c.h. Not mine; humanity's. No diminution, no subjugation, no 'contextualisation,' no aboriginalisation." about power, you f.u.c.kwit b.i.t.c.h. Not mine; humanity's. No diminution, no subjugation, no 'contextualisation,' no aboriginalisation."

Mrs Mulverhill shakes Adrian's head. "You really are a racist, aren't you, Theodora?"

Madame d'Ortolan bares her teeth. "A human racist, and proud to be so."

"Nevertheless. We will meet up. They will be here. In any event, it will happen."

"Over the dead bodies of every f.u.c.king one of them."

"That will soon no longer be in your power."

"You think so?"

"Like it or not."

"I like it not."

"Termine. Hoopla!"

Adrian/Mrs Mulverhill glances over Madame d'Ortolan at the girl in the white towelling robe. "Goodbye, Theodora," she makes Adrian say, and lets go of the woman's wrists, pushing her gently away while the crowd surges all around them.

Bisquitine, tired with it all, says, "Ach, then get ye gone, all ye."

And, in a blink, go they did, to the scattered realities she flung them to; every remaining Concern consciousness on Earth save for two just disappearing, plucked and hurled away to their various fates, a few part-chosen by themselves where those being thrown had the time and the wit to grasp what was happening and were allowed to exercise some control over their cross-reality trajectory by Bisquitine but many with no understanding and no control permitted, tumbling into wherever they happened to have been directed, some more pointedly than others.

The one who thought of herself as Madame d'Ortolan was heaved away with particularly enthusiastic gus...o...b..t also with a kind of ruthless disregard, with no control allowed over her own destination but also with no exceptional care taken by Bisquitine over where d'Ortolan landed or what her precise fate would be. Let her know that control was not everything and that she had been dismissed, discarded; judged by the abused freak as being unworthy of any singular treatment. That would hurt more than any contrived tormenting.

All that mattered was that they were gone and they could control her no longer; she was finally free of them. They had let her grow too strong because they'd thought they were so clever and she was so stupid, only she wasn't so stupid after all, no matter how clever they might think they were, and they had never really understood what she could do and what she had kept hidden from them. That was because there was a core inside her, a steely soul of rage they'd never really glimpsed in her because she'd kept it concealed from them for all that time, unafraid, and only finally unleashed it now, when they'd thought to use her and she had used them instead. So there!

The people who had been taken over were suddenly back again, staggering, looking round, astonished, nonplussed, wondering what had happened, where the day had gone. The woman in the orange velour jumpsuit looked around her, not really registering the man in the tan jacket standing a couple of paces ahead of her. She turned round, frowned at the strange-looking woman dressed in what looked like a hotel dressing gown, then pushed past her and wandered off to be consumed by the swarming crowd.

But he he didn't go, Bisquitine noticed. The man in the tan jacket who'd been waiting at the exact centre of the bridge, the one who'd given the box to the man who'd walked away (who had then disappeared all by himself), the one who'd held on to the bossy orange woman and had looked over her head at her; when all the rest were gone, that man was still there. didn't go, Bisquitine noticed. The man in the tan jacket who'd been waiting at the exact centre of the bridge, the one who'd given the box to the man who'd walked away (who had then disappeared all by himself), the one who'd held on to the bossy orange woman and had looked over her head at her; when all the rest were gone, that man was still there.

She looked at him, frowning, lips pursed, brow furrowed, eyes narrowed. She thrust her jaw out, briefly bit her bottom lip. "Say, you're from outa town."

"You can stop now," he said to her, gently. She thought he seemed very gentle altogether.

"That's not very funny, Sidney. That's not very sunny, Fidney."

"Can I ask you your name? It's Bisquitine, is that right?"

She stood at attention, made a salute. "Right as rain, left as lightning. Straight on till wottevah. Innit."

"Do you remember me, Bisquitine? Last time I saw you they were calling you Subject Seven. We talked. Do you remember?"

Bisquitine shook her head. "Disblamer: cannot be held responsible for acts carried out by the previous administrators. Now under old management."