By Alan Morgan

Episode Nine - 'Hampstead Brown'

"That's pleasing to know," the woman beamed in response. Five foot nothing and round as a ball, Miss. Glory suited the green and white striped uniform very well. Her immaculately scrubbed hands were crossed across the lap of the pinafore that lay protectively over the starched, knee-length nurse's dress, green stockings and sensible flat shoes. The Director allowed himself a nod in observance of her fine bosom and page-boy hair, for although the majority of the Candystripers employed by the Sanatorium were both younger and more shapely, his own taste ran to the middle-aged and matronly.

"I note that previously you have been retained by a number of our finest families. Might one ask quite why you have chosen to come to us? You understand, of course, that the salary we offer is unlikely to compete with that which you have obviously enjoyed." He was (in reflection to Miss. Glory) a thin man. Leaning forward in his narrow black suit he looked like a raven, an image that his intense eyes, forward jutting lips and dark widow's peak did nothing to dispel.

Miss. Glory laughed softly in reply, a mostly internal gesture that set her smooth neck juggling. "I fear I am becoming a little old to be chasing the progeny of the powerful nowadays. The bloodlines are becoming increasingly pure, after all, and with the advent of puberty their powers become ever more prevalent."

"But of course." The Director waved a hand dismissively. "Eton?"

"Quite so. My little darlings need to be brought up ready to take their place within the ruling elite, and Nana Glory isn't as fast on her pins as she once was. None of my sweet charges have ever failed to enter the Chelsea Hunt. Discipline is the key."

"Discipline?"

"But of course!" Miss. Glory's face became impassive. "With great power comes great responsibility. I wouldn't like to think that any of my little darlings would bring shame to the name of the Caligula. I have my reputation to think of."

"Quite." The Director rubbed his hands happily. "Then, on behalf of the Sanatorium, might I be permitted to welcome you to our happy little band."

The Sanatorium had been established in 1665. The same year the great plague had swept Europe, leaving nearly half of its population dead or dying of the expanding buboes. Concerned about the threat to their own bloodline, the Stuart monarchs had commissioned the construction of a hospice to tend to the sickly and afflicted of the ruling houses. Of course, even then there had been a little power, and the never-known metahumans of the day had done much to alleviate the suffering within. That their power had been thought to come from God only added to the Sanatorium's reputation, and in the years that followed it became a secure facility for the treatment of the mentally and physically ravaged scions of the great and powerful. From the basement cells of the severely mutated to the Royal suite in the eaves, the Sanatorium tended to the insane, the obscene and the possessed.

Outwardly a fine country house, it had expanded to gain two additional wings to cope with Victoria's mutant brood and those Uprights who fell victim to the curses and spells of the primitives discovered by an ever-expanding Empire. Tucked in the far corner of the grounds were two cemeteries: the first to cater to the incurable who were left in the courtyard on a winter's evening until pneumonia took them, the second to administer to the occasional nosy journalists who, having found out a little, had sought to uncover more.

Miss. Glory had soon made her authority clear.

The Candystripers employed to administer to the "'guests" were mostly in their mid- to late twenties, for the most part having previously acted as maids to the Paracelsus until their looks had mislaid any hint of innocence or the blank stupidity demanded by that flower of British society. Unlike Miss. Glory (whose adaptations had been made long before her arrival at the Sanatorium and had been judged sufficient), the women were tended to by the surgeons to facilitate their tasks.

Miss. Glory watched the Candystripers enter the shower room. Broad hands on wide hips, she counted them loudly to ensure that none evaded the powerful needles of water needed to fulfil the stringent hygiene of the Sanatorium. Never had such a thing happened, but Miss. Glory had easily assumed the mantle of Matron, the other women taking to her authority as they had been programmed to.

The nearest one was typical of the type. Long athletic legs, narrow waist and broad shoulders that supported lean arms packed with fibre bundles of artificial muscle. Miss. Glory watched the savage spikes of water rebound from the woman's high breasts and the smooth, china-doll face, thin-slitted nose and perfectly round eyes that never needed to blink and which neither darkness nor illusion could obscure. Not a hair sprouted upon the entire body, though the light gleamed from the metal contacts on fingertips that could deliver a perfectly regulated electrical charge, sufficient to incapacitate even the most reticent Guest. The process of change was said to be reversible if needed, but the women were exquisitely conditioned in their thoughts, emotions and needs. Only the occasional late intake (such as Miss. Glory herself) were judged to be beyond the need for such mental programming.

"Filth and grime," shouted Matron Glory, "is a bitter crime. Coughs and sneezes spread diseases. A ragged hem we empirically condemn!"

"Scrub the skin," the nearest woman chanted back. "Let not the germ in."

Glory slapped her on the bottom and tended to her own ablutions.

Amelia had been a Bad Girl. It had been six months since her father had finally acceded to the suggestion to have his surviving child sent to the Sanatorium. It could have been a year; Amelia simply didn't know. She had been born mentally entwined with her twin Jeremy, only surviving children of Lord Alistair D'Arcy. As one, they had grown up in the surroundings of luxury; as one, they had entered the hallowed halls of Eton. There they had remained locked together, sharing (if not thoughts) then at least desires, emotions and needs. Amelia and Jeremy had begun to develop independent character during their school years, but not so much that they didn't chase the same girl and it had been the cause of their only argument when it had been Amelia that had successfully seduced Jocasta in the long nights of the girls' dormitory.

Naturally, they had graduated with full honours. Naturally, they had passed Finals and been inducted into the Chelsea Hunt. Jocasta had taken over the leadership of the Chelsea branch when Lady Astor had moved upwards to the Paracelsus, and the twins' prominence had been assured since they had been (and still were) lovers to the new Mistress of the Belgravia Hunt.

Then had come that day.

Embankment Underground Station. The Lazarus. Jeremy had been lost to the oncoming tube train, whilst Bullman's life blood fled from his severed penis.

Amelia found it hard to think. Half of her mind was missing.

And she had been a Bad Girl.

"Dirty sheets!" The vaguely synthetic voice of the Candystriper scolded her. "Dirty walls! Dirty girl." The woman pointed at the streaks that Amelia had made in her room, smearing her faeces upon each surface with slow strokes of her stained hands. "Bad Girl!"

Punishment.

Naked but for the Tabula Rasa suppression collar Amelia snarled at her captor. Crouched, feral and wholly animal, she scuttled into the rooms far corner and tossed the lump she had hidden there at the advancing Candystriper, who glared at the brown stain that now marred her once perfectly clean pinafore. Amelia tried to reach out for the union she needed from Jeremy, to combine their attacks, but he wasn't there. She subvocally commanded her skin to sprout the inch razors across her flesh that impeded attack, or for her fingertips to extend into the lashing, barbed whips that would strangle and pierce the hated.

The collar just hummed and countered the thought.

"Bad Girl!" the Candystriper said again and snatched Amelia from the corner by the Guest's long, tangled hair. "Punishment!"

Amelia was alone. Her nails were brittle and like her bones would break in long lines should she try and move from the basket. Her flesh hung empty from the coat-hanger of her frame, and though her sight was still sharp, it saw only emptiness in the metal bowl set near to her.

"She doesn't age, you see," the Director explained to Miss. Glory. "One of our most interesting cases, a fount of possibility!" The man reached out with one long finger and traced it down the lines of Amelia's captive body. "You can feel the implants if you try - see, here, housing for her defensive system."

"Just cybernetic enhancements? A lot of their parents pay for such things when they are still babies."

"Oh no." The Director smiled at Miss. Glory. "She's not a Cheater. It is true that children can be 'upgraded,' so to speak, upgraded in order to pass qualification for Eton, but her implants are simple things. Easily removed. No, they are merely enhancements, and Lord D'Arcy informs me they would have been when she became a member of the Paracelsus."

"If she is not a Cheater," Miss. Glory frowned delightfully, sending the Director's heart a-flutter, "then what..?"

"Breeding, dear lady. Breeding!" the Director explained proudly. "Her ancestor was the mistress of Princess Alexandra, Victoria's unbeloved rake of a child"

Miss. Glory understood. Alexandra possessed the immortality spiral-gene, and to this day still pottered about Buckingham Palace, demanding gin and cunnilingus from the footmen. Only a select few knew her to be a true hermaphrodite. "I see, but that is marvellous!"

"Quite. Such precious blood only came true in the case of her and her twin, Jeremy though. The implants were merely given to increase the odds of her survival. Naturally, she can still die from trauma - she has no special healing facility, after all, but I hear there may be hope yet."

"Hope?" Miss. Glory let her hand touch the Director's intimately.

"Absolutely," he said and gulped against his suddenly dry throat. "I am told that a process has been developed, experimentally, of course. Something to do with the Muscle toxins and a man called Chandler. The Paracelsus is quietly making sure that he is looked after until such a time as the boffins need to bring him in for closer examination."

Miss. Glory let her mouth form into an "o" of awe, and the Director swallowed again.

"Of course," he said quietly, realising he had revealed too much, "this is all frightfully hush-hush."

Alone, alone, in the oubliette of her soul, Amelia heard only the howl of the spirits tumbling past her into the abyss below. Everyone was damned, everyone was a sinner, but she was here, trapped and without succour as the rest of the world went to its delicious punishment.

She had been a Bad Girl. Only Good Girls went to their reward.

Snug in the liquid plastic that shaped to her figure, Amelia's head could not be seen beneath the red metal bowl that covered her skull. A series of valves sparked as the machine educated her, and suggestion-tabs hung securely from the sensitive parts of her body.

"Bad Girls must be punished," the Director intoned gravely. "Coughs and sneezes, spread diseases."

"To a healthy mind we will be kind," agreed Miss. Glory. "Is the dirt-spreading a regular occurrence?"

The Director ignored Amelia and tried to grapple his gaze away from the Matron's stern bosom. "It has happened twice. She will insist on masturbating as well. All the time."

"Masturbating," Miss. Glory sighed. "Terrible. Urges need to be removed - I find a regular beating is the only solution."

"Oh, yes," the Director replied in a tight voice. "Beating. Regular."

Behind him, Amelia twisted in her personal hell.

Thunder trembled the air inside Amelia's room. From her single, barred window, she could see the torrent of rain as it slashed the lawns far below. Lightning curled upon the nearby hills, beautiful as a mayfly and yet more brief in its existence. Mesmerised, the girl dug her fingers into bruised breasts, but the nails were regularly trimmed and she couldn't elicit the pain that she needed to establish a sense of self.

"Miss. D'Arcy," the words came between the thunder.

"Nana?"

"Miss. D'Arcy," Glory said again and hugged the girl to her when she turned. The matron's glands exuded the scents of milk, fresh linen and roses. "There, there, little one."

Amelia hugged the vast woman, and for the first time in a year, she cried.

"I'm here for you, little one. Nana's here. Come along now." Glory lifted Amelia away from the embrace and, taking her by the hand, led her into the corridor and past the Candystripers without who had been ordered by their matron to ignore such a transgression. Their programming demanded ascent to such authority. Sterilised, white corridors parted before them until the gardens were reached and under the cover of the doorway's porch Glory reached into a terracotta plant pot to return with handfuls of dark, loamish mud, which she smeared over Amelia's body, face and hair.

"This is your guilt. This is your pain," she explained. Amelia nodded, her tears eroding the mush about her cheeks. Satisfied, Glory took her young charge's hand once more and, leaving footprints of earth and urine upon the pristine tiles, young Miss. D'Arcy allowed herself to be led.

Doctor Huxton
Sanatorium Director

Amelia played her fingers over the brass plate, pushing the door when it had been marred to her satisfaction. Inside the office itself, Glory waited for the girl to enter and see her work of the evening. Tied to his chair, dressed in the uniform of a Candystriper, face both gagged and made up like a rag doll's, the Director trembled as the lightning showed Amelia's progress towards him in a series of stop-motion frames.

"You are marked by your guilt," Glory whispered. "This is the embodiment of your pain."

"I don't want to be in pain, Nana."

"Of course you don't, sweet child," Glory nodded and took a set of spike keys from a desk drawer. Beckoning Amelia forward, she tried a number on the girl's collar until it sprang open. The Director bore one of his own, and, Tabula Rasa though he might have been, he was just a painted doll now. "Kill the pain, my sweet."

The girl swayed towards the Director and by silhouette alone he saw blades emerge from her body before organic metal fingers (reaching behind his eyes with a touch like a kiss from a departing lover) blinded him.

Amelia stood on the hillside, arms spread as if crucified. The rain battered against her determination and washed her clean of the guilt that coated her. Naked, she screamed to the heavens and defied a god that had made her. Her mortal clay was faulty; in the kiln of the world, she cracked.

It wasn't until morning that the Director was found, when his deputy came into the office for their early morning meeting. Thinking to alert the Tabula Rasa, he ordered the call made by the Director's shocked secretary. Picking up the phone, she speed-dialled the number for the Paracelsian Society instead.

Miss. Glory didn't turn up for work that day, or indeed, the next. Strangely, the entire shift of Candystripers who had resided under her authority seemed to be missing also. The Deputy Director bit his lip as he began to dictate a report but was interrupted in his duty when the secretary showed in a grey-haired yet stiff-backed man.

"Lord D'Arcy to see you, sir," she explained quickly and shut the door behind her.

Blue fire moved lazily between the visitor's bony fingers. "Well?"

Amelia was dead.

All the turmoil of her life had been bundled into a Vive handbag that bobbed on the tide of the Thames, bloated with the gases of the dead and unseen in its metaphorical state as it was caught in the slick, soggy mire left by the retreating tide of the river.

Lia swung her legs to and fro in the air beneath her. Perched on the stone wall that ran the length of London Bridge, she felt its old stone on the palms of her hands. Despite the dark, she had sunglasses tipped back on her forehead to keep her troubled bag of hair from her smiling face. So thin was Lia that even her leggings hung slack about her knees, and it needed three pairs of mismatching socks to fill the heavy boots that she had dragged, protesting, from a skip down river in Limehouse.

A hot night in London town.

It had not been long she had arrived in the capitol, previous to which she had wandered the countryside like an animal as her mind jig-sawed itself together. Feeding on stolen eggs and baby mice, Lia had come to London through Epping Forest, but the pickings here were harder. Never had she thought about where food came from; it just magically appeared on the table each lunchtime.

She stank. Never had she been forced to bathe herself, trim her nails or wash her hair. At home there had been servants, at Eton there had been the younger girls, or the pauper scholarship fillies. In the Sanatorium cleanliness, of course, was part of the regime, so now - now Lia stank quietly to herself.

Her contraceptive injections had fallen by the wayside, and Lia was experiencing her first real ovulation.

Twice she had killed. Once when she had fallen into the hands of a rural gang, and the other the previous night when a pair of South London gangsters had tried to abduct her for reasons of their own. The guilt of the crime needled her, but it was summer, and without the weather to help her, she didn't know how to cleanse the feeling.

"D'you wanna fag, love?" One of the three girls addressed Lia. She had seen them approaching, dressed up in their pseudo-expensive clothing and one-higher-than-cheap makeup. Each chewed a stick of Whizzgum, and their eyes were enlarged in adverse comparison with their pupils, which were merely finger marks in the snow.

"Don't smoke, darling," Lia explained. The girls seemed surprised by her educated, Hampstead tones. Red wine rich and correct. "Run away, 'ave yer?" a second girl asked. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a poor imitation of society fashion. "Lookin' fer'a bit'a fun?"

"Daddy taken yer Aeroflot away, as'e?" the third girl sniggered.

"No." Lia swung down onto the pavement. "Not really. He might have done, I suppose. Why, has he taken yours?"

"We ain't got no Aeroflots, yer stuck-up bitch!" snapped the first girl. Her hair was bleached but showed red at the roots. "Least we knows 'ow to take a barf..." The girls all giggled at that one.

Lia reached up with a blur and touched the jacket the first girl wore. It was a cheap knock-off from a Bernau original. Stretching no further down than the ribs, it consisted of a mass of pockets laced together with twisted thong. "I like the jacket, darling."

"Naff off!" bleached girl snapped and tried to knock Lia's hand away but failed. In response, the South London casual was dragged brutally forward until Lia was able to plant a quick kiss on her passion-red lips.

"Dyke!" bleached girl spat, but Lia's fingers twitched into the open mouth and tickled her brain through the roof of the mouth. As the other two girls stepped back (then ran), Lia took the jacket for herself and idly dropped the pocket's contents onto the tarmac at her feet.

By the time Lia reached Oxford Street, even the late-night shoppers had retreated to their homes. The clubs had yet to shut, and apart from the odd drunken reveller, she had the night to herself. Hands behind her back, fingers laced within the too-long sleeves of her new jacket, Lia looked at the display window of Hennes department store.

Last year's craze for Argent gear had faded, and this year's line followed the superhero theme only in design. The mannequins crouched in mock-combat poses, but although they were clearly uniformed, they weren't in imitation of established Tabula Rasa heroes; rather, the designers had invented their own.

"Nice," Lia said aloud as she looked at one outfit in particular. It was a one-piece swimsuit-style outfit made of moulded rubber. Matching leggings left a gap at the upper thigh. Without checking to see if she was being observed, the girl pushed a finger against the glass (which stubbornly resisted her imperative). Letting her head bob to one side, she applied a little more pressure, letting her fingertip narrow to increase the connected pressure.

It took thirty seconds for the stress against the glass to build up before it fragmented before her. As alarm bells sounded, Lia stripped off her salvaged clothing and pulled on the outfit she had been staring at. Quality garment that it was, it moulded to her nicely. Pulling her boots and jacket back on, she stepped into the street in time for three dandies to reach the pavement about her.

Hunting pink, brushed suede jodhpurs, old guard hats.

"Hello!" a young man called to her. "I say, tonight's fox. Hello fox, we're the..."

"Chelsea Hunt, darling," Lia finished. "Yes, I know."

The young man looked at his companions before looking back at their prey. Lia dimly remembered them from being in the year below her at School. It was quite possible that the girl had lapped her out at some stage; Lia had been the captain of the School's Indoor Oral team, after all. Events, muck and smell disguised her, though, since the School's elite saw only the mask, the image and the blood - not the person behind them. It was her accent that was giving them trouble.

"Must have been a servant at one stage, eh what?" the young man decided aloud. "Splendid. Well then, you know we'll give you a head start, then..?"

Lia didn't know how they were equipped, but she recalled that the young man had been something big in bending iron bars. This in mind, she took to her heels, counting to fifty-nine as she ran; she dropped to the road and smiled as the homer dart buzzed over her head.

She knew the tricks; she knew the tactics.

Turning the corner into Argyle Street, Lia ran towards Liberties, where she threw a bin through the nearest window, setting off more alarms. The Hunt would assume she'd broken in, meaning to hide. Instead, she took a sharp left and moved with swift stealth into Carnaby Street. Hiding in the alcoves that fronted the courier's pub, she watched as the three Hunters came to the scene of her diversion and paused. The girl, she noticed, was holding the clothes she had but recently discarded. Sniffing them, the Huntress shook her head to the others and pointed in the direction of their Fox.

"Tracker," Lia muttered and set off again past the barred windows of the shops that catered to the "hip" tourist trade and the frightfully middle-classed girls looking for club gear. Keeping on the route that led north, Lia made for the only place she knew the Hunt would not go. Camden.

Camden Market was neutral ground. No one broke the Market Truce - it simply wasn't done. Besides which, should the Hunt ever enter the area, they would attract the attention of more trouble than even they could deal with. None of them wanted a hundred scruffy drop-outs taking the piss.

It was at King's Cross that they caught up with Lia. Young Mosley, the new leader of the Chelsea Hunt, had summoned an Aeroflot, and they had cruised above the streets trying to place an eye upon the Fox that Tara Fortingdown could follow from the smell in her clothes. Tara was truly a marvel; to follow a trail left by anyone from a personal item was a useful power for anyone in their select club. Mosley himself was super strong - natural ability enhanced by the drugs that had descended to him from the late, much lamented Bullman. He had idolised Bullman, but the word had come from the Paracelsus that his killer, Chandler, was to be left alone.

For now.

The third member of the latest incarnation of the Chelsea Hunt was James Wells. Jamie was a quiet lad and, of them all, the only one who would have really qualified for Rasa status. Tara's form of psychomancy was, of course, legitimate but really more of a Police power. Mosley depended upon a concoction of drugs to enhance his own abilities, but Jamie, well, little Jamie had been a real star at School.

Jamie had been imbued with the spiritual power of a relic brought back in 1197 from the Holy Land. It had taken his family two years and boundless research to make the relic choose him as the heir to the power, for the relic was soon to pass Beyond and needed a champion. Since young Jamie had been the only person permitted into the specially constructed vault at Wells Manor, it hadn't really had much of a choice.

Jamie Wells could fly, Jamie Wells could send forth lances of bright light, and Jamie Wells could conjure forth a shield of glowing energy to deflect both energy and bullets.

Jamie Wells was also an idiot with an IQ of 51, he didn't have much of a chin, and his eyebrows met in the middle. Some blood, Young Mosley admitted only to himself, really was a little bit too pure.

"She's near," Tara said and brought her leader back from his reverie. Mosley needed to prove himself, he knew. Only three members of the last Chelsea Hunt remained; one of them was in the loony bin, one of them was a traitor to be hunted and killed, and the remainder had been last seen chasing aircraft as they taxied to take off from Heathrow. Young Mosley had the good name of the Belgravia Chelsea Hunt to restore.

"Jamie." Young Mosley tapped his companion on the shoulder. "Jamie!"

The young man was looking over the open sides of the Aeroflot, drooling on the upholstery and waving at passersby. "Yee'eessss?" Jamie drawled back. Despite his limited intelligence, his voice was cultured, full of arrogant disdain, and the product of a great deal of expensive elocution lessons that had removed the thin stream of invective that had been his only speech in childhood.

"Jamie, the Fox is close."

"I say!" Jamie answered cheerfully. "Bang on! Is that her?" With which he thrust out a hand and burnt a hole a foot across in the chest of a man who was shouting at them from below. Young Mosley stared at the body through a pair of digital bino's.

"No, Jamie. That was a Policeman."

"Hard cheese." Jamie nodded and stared dumbly as the Aeroflot was brought closer to ground level.

Lia jumped from the terraces of St. Pancras. She knew that the Aeroflot would be on autopilot, responding to voice command as the Hunt searched the ground. She knew the route it would take; she knew which point it would choose to land. She knew it would pass this point, and thus she was able to land on the floating platform as it made its descent.

Before Mosley's astonished face, Lia pushed Tara sharply so that she stumbled on her high-heeled boots against the Aeroflot's railing, only to be tipped over the side when Lia caught the expected kick and added more energy to her upswing.

Lia had studied the Vogue style of martial arts also. The heel-sweep was the standard first attack. Before Young Mosley could assimilate what was happening, Lia jumped over the side, letting Tara break her fall and the Huntress' neck in the process.

Jamie watched the action with interest before being distracted by a pair of pigeons that were mating nearby. "Look at that, Mosley old boy!" he pointed.

"It's her - the Fox! Get her, Jamie!"

"What old boy, the crumply one?"

"No, you moron, that's Tara!" Young Mosley screamed.

"Tara? I know a Tara. Simply 'triffic gel. Knows Mosley, don'cha'know. Good family. You know Mosley?" Jamie sneered.

"I AM Mosley?"

"Course you are, old boy. Splendid chap. Went to Eton."

By the time the entire membership of the Chelsea Hunt had managed to come to terms with current reality, Lia was long gone.

It was sheer fluke that the Hunt found Lia. She had been hurrying along the canal and was less than a hundred yards from Camden Lock before the Aeroflot dropped Mosley off before her. Pulling on his kid-leather gloves, the hunter stood and waited for Lia as she slowed to a halt before him.

"Thrashing time, gel," he announced. "You killed Tara, you little minx! Now, I could let Jamie burn you to a cinder, but really, that would be too easy. After all, we have to revenge our dead, don't you think?"

Lia came at him at a rush, but the youth had seen her in action already and was expecting the assault. He side-stepped the kick and blocked the suddenly extended, fibrous fingers with a fist to her forearm. For a moment, time treacled as Lia saw herself wide open - then, with a snap, she was backsliding in the air from the uppercut he had given in response. She had twisted enough that it caught her shoulder and she tried to move in the air to cushion her fall, but the time she had was taken up with anger. It didn't hurt; she had killed her pain in the Sanatorium.

Hard ground and tow-path cobbles stitched their way into her reality, and the wind was driven from her lungs. She didn't fight well alone, she needed someone to bond with, she needed her Jeremy, but that ghost had been exorcised.

"Is that it?" Young Mosley asked as he danced along the pathway. "Never mind - early night then, I think."

Scrabbling for breath, Lia tried to stand but only managed her knees. She felt wind, sudden and short, pass her and dimly saw her Hunter vanish in a flurry of fur, teeth and claws.

"Yer alright?" the woman asked her again. Her hair was heavily braided and in places had dreaded up, but her parka was mostly clean, as were her ex-army trousers and the rigger's boots she favoured. Her eyes were very clear and slightly tilted at the edges. She didn't wear makeup, and half the pub had given her a long appraisal as she had pushed through to the bar minutes earlier.

"I think so, darling," Lia answered and looked curiously at the pint glass now before her.

"The other blokey in the Aeroflot just stood and watched the whole thing. He's probably still there now!" the woman laughed.

"No, the vehicle will take him home automatically if it remains stationary for more than an hour." Lia's voice curled about the words. Her rescuer looked at the outfit that the skinny woman was garbed in and pointed to a nearby hatchway.

"You hungry?"

"I think so."

"There's a score." The woman passed over a twenty-pound note. "Go over there and choose what you want."

Lia looked at the money curiously. She had always used credit chips, and paper money was pretty rare. "I give them this?"

"They should even give yer change."

Lia looked about her. "Where am I, darling?"

"Lock Tavern, Camden. Yer safe now."

"Safe?" Lia shook her head. The room was crowded with lower-class refugees, drummers, punks and crusties. "Camden? Good."

"Look," the woman said, taking out a pen, "this is me mobile number - it's secure, so don't worry - I know a toolboy, and he fixed it all up. I'm off to Stratford, got stuff to do. You get some scran down yer neck, then give us a ring."

"I think I'm a superhero, darling," Lia explained.

"Well, if you wanna be a good guy, you just give us a call sometime. Meanwhile, yer might want to think about 'aving a wash."

The woman scribbled a number across the arm of Lia's jacket and stood up to leave. The number was headed by the name "Clara."

"I could join a superhero group..." Lia mused.

"Black Flagg, girl. Give me a ring when yer sorted."

Lia stood up and, moving to the hatch, exchanged the note for a pile of chips and a sandwich. The woman had gone when she returned, and in her place had squeezed a boy in a short skirt and an older woman with an age-scarred face. "Excuse me," Lia asked them.

"Yeah?"

"Would you mind awfully dipping my French fires in the ketchup?"