The SCI'ON Trilogy

Chapter One – Kai and Ryan

‘Kai!’ There was a silence. Then, more impatiently, ‘Kai! Where is that boy? Yo Kai!’

The bushes rustled, and a dark tousled head appeared. ‘All right – all right, keep your hair on!’

The modern colloquialisms that he had picked up from her still sounded strange in his mouth to Ryan. She could not help smiling, but she soon became serious.

‘Kai, did you get away all right? I’ve been so worried. I wish you’d stay here with me.’

‘Can’t,’ he said, giving her a cockeyed grin. ‘I have to be on the spot, so to speak. You know that. I’m sure Mac would agree,’ he added slyly.

She sighed; it was true. Nothing was more important than the mission – whatever that was. Ever since she had been about twelve and Malcolm O’ Connor had discovered that her childhood playmate came from – well another world, she called it (although Mac said she was oversimplifying it) and it had turned out that only she and Kai could cross over between them, he had been sending them on ever more and increasingly dangerous missions. He had said that they must be chosen whatever that meant. It had never occurred to her or Kai that Mac might know something that they did not, or that he was not who he said he was, or even that he was insane. But they had not argued with him. In fact, Ryan had been rather pleased to be so important, and so had Kai. And now that they were older and not so easily impressed, it was too late, because, chosen or not, there really were a lot of people who needed help in Kai’s world and they did what they did – they helped people because not to, when they could, was unthinkable. They were trapped. Trapped by their own consciences.

‘It’s a good job too,’ said Kai, referring to his earlier comment and breaking in on her thoughts. ‘He’s at it again.’

‘The Count?’

‘Yep, and I wouldn’t have known if I lived here, now would I, eh?’

‘Another baby?’

‘He’s got it in the palace as we speak.’ Kai confirmed.

‘What does he want them for?’

‘Beats me. Not for any good though, I reckon, that’s all we need to know, ain’t it? We gotta get it out, before he …’

‘Exactly,’ Ryan pounced on his perplexed pause. ‘Before he what?’

Kai wrinkled his brow. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘But it can’t be good. We know what he’s like, and if he weren’t up to no good, what’s he want to kidnap it for?’

This was indisputable. The Count Kalas, who was a part of Kai’s world and an absolute ruler of his little empire, had an evil reputation. He had, to Kai and Ryan’s certain knowledge, been previously involved in ritual virgin sacrifices, had had several servants beheaded and was known to consort with witches who, Kai assured her, were, in his world at least, always up to no good.

It seemed strange to think now, that as a child, she had never realised just how different Kai’s world had been, had never realised that it was a different world at all. For such an idea would not have seemed as impossible to a child as it would to an adult. And yet, with a head full of Narnia and Tir Na Nog, still she had accepted that through the little gate at the back of the garden Kai lived in a home without electricity where he had no TV or washing machine or stereo. She had envied him, not having to go to school without ever wondering about it or thinking it strange. Nor had her mother, who had opined that the Lascalles family – Kai’s family, must belong to some weird religion and had expressed some uneasiness about Ryan sharing his company.

‘What kind of name is Kai anyway?’ she had asked. ‘What kind of name is Lascalles, for that matter?’

But Ryan had not known and did not care. Kai was her best friend, and if he did not have a TV, he had something better in his world, as Ryan was to discover – magic. It took her a while to see this as an advantage of his world over hers because, until she was nine, she firmly believed, like all small children, that her world had magic in it too. She just had not seen any yet.

Kai had grown up almost without her noticing it. It may have been because he still, at the age of twenty, was not very tall, at least not for a man, and he was lithely built, although wiry and deceptively strong. In a world without modern conveniences, people had to work hard just to eat and Kai had grown up on a farm. Or it may have been his large blue eyes, which gave his face a still childlike quality, and he still wore the same untidy haircut and peasant clothes that he had always done. In many ways, he had hardly changed at all. Had she known it, but she honestly never gave it much thought, she had not changed much either. Also twenty, she looked no older than fifteen, with her long fair hair scraped back in a ponytail and no make-up most of the time, only the changes in her figure indicated that she had grown up at all. She did not consider herself pretty, and in truth, she was not, but she was attractive. Her green eyes, long but not large, were secretive and seductive, her cheekbones high and her mouth sulky except when she smiled, when it seemed almost to stretch across her whole face. She was tall for a woman, the same height as Kai, and when her hair blew around her face, she resembled nothing so much as a Viking princess. This effect, though, was somewhat spoiled, when in her own world, by the constant wearing of faded jeans and a battered cowboy hat pulled low over her eyes.

This hat she tipped back now to look at Kai. ‘Do we have a plan for getting in?’ she asked him. ‘We can’t use the same as last time.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘Too risky, they know us now.’ He paused. ‘Maybe I should go alone.’

‘I’d like to see you,’ she scoffed.

‘What's that supposed to mean?’

‘I mean I’d never let you do it, we’re a team, aren’t we?’

He looked at the ground.

‘Well aren’t we?’ she persisted.

‘I did have one idea,’ he said, ignoring this. ‘I think we should run it by Mac first.’

Ryan narrowed her eyes at this evasiveness, but said nothing for they were at the door, where Mac greeted them.

‘Morning Kai, glad you’re still in one piece. Hello sulky.’ This last shot to Ryan, who scowled.

Malcolm O’ Connor had been first a genial neighbour and later Ryan’s stepfather, jovially referred to as The Ogre until she had learned to like him and discovered that his arias were worse than his battle scenes. She had been left in his custody when her mother had run off with yet another man who was, less jovially, referred to by both of them as: That bastard, son of a bitch and sometimes That scheming tosspot.

Ryan had been surprisingly unaffected by her mother’s desertion; in truth, she had expected it, and was closer to her stepfather anyway; she had been going on missions for him for three years already when her mother had left. Ryan had been christened Alyssa, and Ryan was her father’s surname. When Malcolm had married her mother he had adopted Alyssa, and she became known as Alyssa Ryan-O’ Connor, but she lost no time in dropping the Alyssa, which she did not like anyway, and from the age of ten had been simply Ryan O’ Connor. She was more than happy to be known by her stepfather’s name, yet she had not wanted to drop her real father’s name entirely, and she was not, as she said, a double-barrelled kind of person.

Kai had been left an orphan at the age of three, and been brought up by his grandfather, Matthias Lascalles, who had disappeared in mysterious circumstances two years earlier. It was only recently that Kai had begun to wonder if the same thing might not have happened to his parents. With the Count around, anything was possible.

Kai appeared around the corner clutching a bundle of rags, he gave the thumbs up sign and Ryan nodded, holding her finger to her lips. She pointed to the balcony that they had designated their exit route and indicated that the coast was clear. Kai nodded and began to move when they heard footsteps, the unmistakable tap, tap, tap, of the Count himself, in his absurd patent heeled boots.

‘Shit!’ mouthed Ryan, to Kai’s great admiration, he still was not comfortable cursing himself, but he loved to hear her do it. It seemed so daring, all part of her fearlessness. She hesitated; Kai had the baby; it was up to her. She stepped out in front of the Count to his utter astonishment, and Kai ran for it, feeling a coward, but unwilling to face her wrath if he did not. The Count let him go.

He turned an evil smile on Ryan. ‘I’ll get him the next time,’ he said as she levelled her revolver at him.

‘It was a trap,’ panted Kai. ‘He did it to get us there, we’ve been causing him too much trouble lately, and now he’s got her. He’ll kill her for sure.’

Now that the baby was safe, Kai was feeling his burden of guilt, he saw it all clearly now, and he had just left her there. Just run away.

‘Now calm down,’ Mac told him. ‘She’s been in worse situations, you both have. How do you know she won’t kill him?’

Kai stared.

‘What do you mean, he's a vampire?’ Mac roared. ‘A ruddy vampire! And you didn’t think to tell us this?’ He was pacing the room in his fury. ‘Oh my God.’

‘I thought you knew,’ mumbled Kai, shamefacedly. ‘He’s a Count.’

‘What the blue-blazes does that have to do with it?’ bellowed Mac. He paused as this sunk in. ‘Wait a minute, do you mean to tell me that if you are a Count, you are automatically a vampire?’

‘Of course,’ Kai faltered. ‘You didn’t know that?’

‘Of course not fool. How should I? Vampires don’t exist here.’

‘B-but that means that she doesn’t know.’ Kai started to panic. ‘She won’t run. She’ll try to fight, and he can’t be fought – can’t be killed. I left her there, and it’s exactly the same as if I’d killed her.’

The door flew open, and a furious voice called. ‘You could have told me the bastard was a vampire.’

‘Ryan! How? What? Oh thank God, how did you escape?’

‘In a cloud of dust.’ She grinned.

‘Huh?’

‘His dust, I staked him. You know?’

Kai shook his head perplexedly.

‘Like Dracula.’

Kai shook his head. ‘Who?’

Mac was laughing softly by this time. ‘I think I can elucidate,’ he said. He turned to Ryan. ‘You killed him?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And how did you know how to do that?’

‘Well, books, TV, movies, you know.’

‘And Kai, have you ever heard of a book about a vampire? A story book?’

‘No.’

‘Hmm, I’m not surprised. If vampires are real in your world and hold positions of power, such stories would be suppressed, naturally. You do not know then how to kill a vampire?’

‘But I did,’ butted in Ryan. ‘Because they aren’t real in our world, so we know how to do it – in theory anyway.’

‘Vampires can be killed?’ stuttered Kai. ‘But they’re already dead.’

‘Is much of your world under vampire control?’ asked Mac, ignoring this.

‘Almost all of it, I’d say.’ He thought about this. ‘But if what you say is true, then it need no longer be.’

‘Maybe this is our mission,’ interrupted Ryan excitedly, ‘to free Kai’s world from …’ She stopped suddenly, a new thought had occurred to her. She turned to Kai. ‘You mean you left me there believing I had no chance?’

Kai’s face burned. In his shame, he missed the note of compassion in her voice and instead invested the question with the accusation that he had been heaping on himself.

He turned away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. And then, ‘I should go.’

He was out the door and flying up the path before either of them could stop him.

‘What did I say?’ said Ryan.

Kai was in the middle of a dusty cornfield when she found him. Two miles out from the farmhouse and wielding a scythe like a maniac. She waited for him to see her and meanwhile watched a glorious sunset. Eventually, hot and sweaty and tired out, he stopped and then he saw her. She was standing perfectly still in the twilight, in a long white dress. She was, as she would have said, incognito, her long fair hair shining in the pale light of a moon not quite out and still competing with the last rays of the sun. She seemed, in this unearthly light, to glow of herself, she really looked almost inhuman, angelic even, and quite beautiful. Kai stared at her as if he had never seen her before; he felt dryness in his mouth that had never before been associated with her presence, his heart was thumping painfully. He put it down to guilt.

‘Kai.’ Even the voice was not her own. She held out her hands to him, and he moved toward her slowly, his legs felt like they were full of porridge. He put it down to weariness.

‘You really are a berk,’ she grinned, and the world returned to normal.

Kai shrugged. ‘I’m sorry I left you.’

‘I know you are. That’s all I meant you know. It must have been hard for you. I’m not mad, honest. Anyway, it all worked out for the best, didn’t it?’

Kai shrugged again. ‘I guess.’

‘Let’s get back to the house, it’s getting dark.’ She glanced up at the sky. ‘I reckon there’s a storm coming.’

‘What do you mean? It’s a beautiful night.’

‘Nevertheless, I reckon there’s a storm coming,’ she said in a sombre voice.

Kai laughed. ‘You should be on the stage – sweeping it.’ He clutched a hand dramatically to his breast. ‘Oh save us mere mortals from the deadly influence of a vengeful God,’ he pronounced pompously in the best traditions of bad acting.

Ryan thumped him, laughing herself now. ‘Shut up you cheeky toad.’

He dodged away and picked up the scythe, then walked toward her, brandishing it fearsomely. ‘Ask not for whom the bell tolls …’ he began in a lugubrious tone, when the sky was split by a terrible cry, at once both harsh and shrill and deadly cold.

Ryan started to look about her wildly, but Kai already had her by the elbow. ‘Run!’

Wheeling about in the sky were several large shapes like birds or maybe dragons, except they shot no flame. Indeed they seemed almost like mere shadows or ghosts, but the terror of them was unambiguous enough. They ran.

‘What are they?’ gasped Ryan.

‘Hupia,’ he said, shortly, ‘The Child Stealers.’

‘Oh, but that’s …’ She stopped. After all, in this world they had vampires and witches and God knows what else, why not the vampire ghosts who stole children in the night?

‘We’re not children,’ she objected.

Kai looked at her scornfully through streaming eyes. ‘Do you want to risk it?’ he asked. ‘Run! Besides …’

She nodded – vengeance! She put on speed. They reached the horse paddocks and Kai, who could ride, pulled Ryan, who, despite the cowboy hat, could not, onto the back of a large black horse, which was already snorting with terror at the approach of the Hupia. It reared and foamed at the mouth, then bolted. Ryan closed her eyes and prayed.

‘They’re gone,’ said Kai, pulling the shutters closed. ‘They know they can’t get in.’

‘Will they come back?’

‘Not tonight. I should take you home.’

Ryan looked slyly at him. ‘I’d rather stay – if you don’t mind.’

‘I don’t mind he said ingenuously. ‘But there isn’t much to eat and only one bed.’

‘Oh.’ There was a strange lilt in her voice, which Kai did not register.

‘No, no, I don’t mind if you don’t,’ he said, ‘but what about Mac? Won’t he worry about you, if you don’t go home?’

‘Let him worry,’ she said heartlessly. ‘He’s the one who’s always sending me – us into dangerous situations. Do him good to worry for a bit.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. The hospitality isn’t up to much.’

Ryan looked around. It had been years since she had been here, she realised. It looked the same as it ever did. The bare, dusty boards and sparse furniture, which looked so uninviting by day, actually looked rather cosy in the firelight. Besides, there were those – things.

‘I’ll get us some supper,’ she said decisively. And it was settled.

‘Bread and cheese? No wonder you’re so thin.’

Kai screwed his face up. ‘I told you there wasn’t much.’

They sat companionably before the fire. ‘Tell me about the Hupia.’ She said.

Kai shuddered. ‘I don’t know much,’ he said. ‘They haven’t been seen since my grandfather was a boy. He told me the stories that his father told him. I always thought that they were just stories to frighten children into behaving, like the bogie man. Then I saw them just recently, oh maybe a week ago. I saw them in the sky, and I knew. I remembered, but I don’t know why they’re back.’

‘What are the stories?’

‘Just that they take children who are out after dark – they disappear in the light. Some say they suck out their souls, but – who knows?’

Ryan shuddered. ‘I believe it.’ she said. ‘Remember how cold?’

Kai nodded.

‘What are you doing? You’re not going to sleep on that chair?’

‘Of course, you don’t think I’d ask you to sleep on it, do you?’

‘I wouldn’t anyway. All the springs are poking out. But the bed’s big enough for two.’

Kai said nothing. He turned red.

‘Oh don’t be such a prude.’

‘I’m not being a prude. How do you know you can trust me?’

Ryan was about to make some joke when she suddenly realised that he was serious – when had that happened? Where was the boy she had known? She surveyed him from under her lids, and then smiled. He really was pretty cute, and in one respect at least, she trusted him more than she trusted any other person in any world.

‘Maybe I don’t want to be able to trust you,’ she told him.

There cannot, surely, be any man in any world anywhere who would refuse such an obvious invitation. They went to bed.

The surface of the water went cloudy. ‘I think that’s enough,’ said the woman. ‘This is not a peepshow. We know what we need to know.’

‘Which is?’ The man was disappointed.

‘Why, that they need each other, that they must be separated,’ she said, as if this ought to be obvious even to a mere man.

‘I could have told you that,’ he said scornfully. ‘They work as a team.’

‘They are more than that, as any fool can see,’ she told him. ‘No, take her away from him and he will be lost, he will waste time in searching for her, be distracted. By the time they work out what’s going on, it will be too late.’

‘Why can’t we just kill them?’

‘Fool,’ she screeched. ‘Haven’t we already tried that? isn’t that how we lost Kalas? Together they are too strong. They protect each other. Don’t ask me why?’

‘Love,’ suggested the man.

‘Love!’ sneered the woman. ‘And what would you know about that?’

‘Nothing from you, certainly,’ said the man. ‘Although we have fun, don’t we?’ he added hopefully.’

‘Not now,’ she told him. ‘I have things to do.’ She stirred up the cauldron, and a fuzzy image appeared. ‘Why don’t you watch those two for a while, if it makes you happy?’

She seemed somewhat chagrined as he settled down in front of the cloudy basin as if he was indeed, more than happy with the idea. She snorted and swept away.

The next morning could have been awkward, but as it turned out, there was not time to feel it. Some days just start with a bang – quite literally. Both were jolted out of bed.

‘What is it?’ panicked Ryan.

‘Earthquake,’ said Kai. ‘Pretty bad one, I should go and check the horses.’ He stood up and grabbed a shirt.

‘The Earth moved,’ giggled Ryan. ‘Bit late,’ she observed, still laughing.

Kai laughed too. They were like two silly children, and somehow all this made what had happened seem okay, no big deal, just another game. Kai strode to the door.

‘Er, Kai.’

‘What?’

‘Trousers.’

He looked down at his bare legs, raised his eyebrows and said. ‘What for? The horses don’t care.’ Then they fell about laughing again.

‘Primrose has a broken leg,’ he called, when he strode back in, ‘but the others are okay. She’ll have to be shot.’

There was no reply and Kai tried again. ‘Ryan?’ Where are you? C’mon it’s the way of the world. Don’t sulk. I can’t afford a lame horse. Ryan?’

It did not take long to search the small cottage; she definitely was not there. No note. She would not leave without letting him know, would she? He was doubtful about this, circumstances being what they were. It was possible that she had decided not to face him this morning after all. And yet … no note? It was not like her. Besides, she had been fine when he left, hadn’t she? He looked outside. There were no footprints in the dirt except his own. That settled it – she didn’t fly out of the window for God’s sake. So, something had happened to her. Another mysterious disappearance. Only this time he had an ace up his sleeve. Alive or dead he would find her.

Chapter Two – Johnny And Jez

Johnny Hammond was sitting, as usual, at his computer screen playing a game of horrible complexity and violence. He leaned back in his chair and yawned surveying the screen through sleepy, half closed eyes, his hands moving the joystick with a remarkable speed and dexterity that seemed unconscious and almost unconnected with him. He paused the game momentarily to brush his untidy blonde hair out of his eyes, causing his mother, who had been standing behind him for God knows how long, to say. ‘I do wish you’d let me cut that lot.’

Johnny resumed his game without acknowledging this remark, which was repeated so often that it was doubtful that he even heard it anymore. Like so many of his mother’s remarks, it was just so much background noise.

‘And turn that thing off now,’ she resumed after picking up a number of items from Johnny’s bed and straightening the rumpled sheets. ‘You have a visitor.’ She pursed her lips as she said this although Johnny did not see it, he heard it in her voice. He grinned at her way of putting it. It had to be Jez, whose name Johnny’s mum refused to utter and whom she disapproved of for reasons that Johnny had never been able to get out of her.

He waved a hand offhandedly without looking round. ‘Okay, send her up then,’

‘Jonathan Matthew Hammond!’ his mum sounded scandalized.

Johnny winced; his mother had placed this embargo on Jez visiting his room at the age of fourteen, an act which, at the time he had found extremely mystifying, although Jez had seemed to understand it and find it highly diverting. How could he have forgotten? Still …

‘Oh for God’s sake mum,’ he snapped, pausing the game to turn round and face her. ‘I’ve been friends with Jez, since I was three, what exactly do you think I’m going to do to her?’

The effect of these words was immediate. His mother blushed a deep crimson and turned on her heel and marched out of the room.

Johnny sighed and turned back to his game, he felt a bit guilty for embarrassing his strait-laced mother like that, but honestly, he was seventeen now, old enough to be trusted surely? Besides, well … Jez? It was ridiculous. Okay, so she was technically a girl, he supposed, but to Johnny she was just Jez. Annoyingly clever, slightly paranoid, incredibly bossy and the best friend he had ever had. Besides which, she had a boyfriend, a lanky college student whom Johnny got on very well with whenever they met, although he had had a little trouble at first coming to terms with the idea that someone else apparently did see her as a girl … Too weird.

But Johnny’s mother had always been like this, overprotective and overbearing. It was understandable, she had lost Johnny’s father shortly after he had been born, and Johnny was all she had left, she would never remarry. John Andrew Hammond had been, according to his widow, the perfect man, reproduced again in his son, who she never ceased to marvel at. That she, plain Mary Collins, that was, should have such a son. It was amazing really that Johnny had turned out the way he had. With such devotion and eulogistic admiration showered on him from his earliest years, one would have expected more arrogance, more vanity. But Johnny had the great gift (or curse) of seeing himself as he really was, and he accepted his mother’s adoration with the same detached serenity as he accepted criticism from others, and remained, for the most part, aloof from the opinions of others.

The screen suddenly boomed GAME OVER! bringing his attention back to it with a jerk. He thumped the desk in frustration.

‘Lose, did you?’ came an amused voice from behind him.

‘Nope,’ said Johnny, spinning his chair around. ‘Won again, and I wasn’t even trying. Jesus, I wasn’t even concentrating. They make them too easy.’ His voice rose to a plaintive howl. He turned to a tall red haired girl leaning with her arms folded and legs crossed in the doorway of his room, a sardonic smile stretched across her wide mouth.

Jezebel Basserié, surely the most unfortunately named child in this millennium, even including the children of rock stars, movie stars and flower children. There cannot be many little girls who would have given up their best Ballerina Barbie doll to be called Tinker Bell or Moon Star.

‘They don’t know they’re born,’ she would sigh.

Her mother, a distracted wispy woman, who only seemed to be half in this world at her most lucid moments, had apparently read the name in a book and thought it pretty. No doubt, the book had been called The Most Infamous Women in History or something along similar lines, but Mrs. Basserié could not be expected to have realised that, she probably had not been reading the book at all. All her actions, reading, knitting watching TV even doing the housework, were more in the nature of an affectation than genuine activity. She pretended to do things. It was apparently quite something to see Mrs. Basserié wandering about her house with a duster in her hand and a distracted air, polishing the cat and anything else that came within her reach. Johnny had never seen this, although he had, when younger, made various and sundry forays to the house at unexpected hours in the hopes of catching a glimpse of this or something equally funny. Jez herself was wont to say that it was a miracle that her mother had spotted the name at all in the book that she was not reading. Johnny thought it a lucky thing that she had not been reading the Bible at the moment of uncharacteristic comprehension, Jez might have ended up being called Kerrenhappuch for example or Methuselah and how would you shorten that? It was pointless for a horrified Jez to say that Methuselah had been a man.

‘What difference would that have made?’ As Johnny pointed out.

Jez was also an only child, and for a similar reason to Johnny. Her father had left before she was born. Probably he could not take any more of Jez’s mother’s unhinged behaviour. Even Jez could not blame him for that.

Jez herself had inherited none of her mother’s airy-fairyness; she was a sharp as a tack, in more ways than one. Many people found her shrewd observation and acid tongue disconcerting. She did not, for instance, fail to notice the slightly guilty start that Johnny made as he turned to face her. ‘I was just coming down,’ he said.

‘S’okay,’ she said. ‘Your mum said: He said you’re to go upstairs, HMMPH.’

One advantage of Jez’s talent for precise observation of others was that it made her an astonishing mimic. This last sound, somewhere between a snort and a sigh, had been uncannily like a noise Johnny’s mum was wont to make whenever Jez’s name came up.

Johnny laughed. ‘Don’t.’ he said. ‘She’s a good egg really. She’s just got a blind spot where you’re concerned.’

‘Don’t I know it,’ snorted Jez. ‘And yet,’ she continued in a dreamy voice. ‘What’s in a name? Would not a Skunk Thistle, by any other name, smell as foul?’

But Johnny was staring at her with a horrified expression on his face. He clutched his heart dramatically and pointed at Jez.

‘But – But,’ he spluttered to her utter astonishment. ‘How can this be? This must not be, oh the horror, you – you’re a-a girl! Oh woe, woe, the disgrace, the shame. There’s a girl in my room, whatever shall I do? Call the village elders.’ He burst out laughing, and Jez leapt on him and pummelled him.

‘You rat bastard,’ she said. ‘You really had me going for a minute there.’ Then she became thoughtful. ‘So that’s what it is, is it? She thinks I’m going to corrupt her little boy?’ She gave him a mischievous glance. ‘Would it help, do you think, if I told her you’d already been corrupted by Helen Webster in eleventh grade?’

‘Don’t you dare,’ said Johnny seriously, ‘she might kill her.’

‘She might, yes.’ Jez gave the impression that at least, as far as she was concerned, this would not constitute a major tragedy.

‘Bitch,’ said Johnny lazily.

‘Pig,’ responded Jez automatically.

‘Cow,’

‘Dog.’

‘Okay, okay, whatever. What am I going to do about these damn computer games?’

‘Dunno. Have a lobotomy?’

‘What are you talking about now, you dim-wit?’

‘You know, to make you stupider, if that’s possible?’

‘Hur, hur, hur.’

‘Well, we could go down to the arcade, they’ve got these new VR games in. Apparently they’re really good. Might be a bit of a challenge.’

‘Might be, I suppose.’ Johnny did not sound convinced.

‘Anyway, I think I can hear your mum coming up the stairs with tea and sandwiches. You know in case we’re hungry.’ She winked outrageously at him.

That clinched it. They went out.

Johnny was irritable as they trudged along the high street towards the large games arcade.

‘Why did you have to bait her like that?’ he growled moodily. ‘Like it wasn’t bad enough that she caught us on the bed.’ He brushed his hair back and forth across the top of his head until it was standing up in all directions, a sure sign of agitation.

Jez reacted irritably. ‘We weren’t doing anything,’ she snapped testily. ‘Ugh, as if.

Johnny grinned despite himself. ‘Oh yeah? Thanks!’

Jez waved a hand dismissively. ‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘I mean you’re like my brother or something, it’s just gross that’s all.’

Johnny shrugged and opened his mouth, but Jez overrode him. ‘Maybe I’m just sick and tired of the way she always …’ She trailed off pulling an expressive face.

Johnny nodded understandingly and reached into his jeans pocket to withdraw his cigarettes. He offered her one, more as a gesture of conciliation than anything else.

She shook her head. ‘I’m trying to quit,’ she said. ‘Pete doesn’t like it. Besides, they cost a fortune.’

‘Free ones don’t,’ argued Johnny lighting one up for himself. ‘Go on, have one. It’ll calm you down. Anyway, since when do you let your boyfriends push you around?’

‘Being considerate of someone’s feelings isn’t letting yourself get pushed around,’ said Jez, but without much conviction. She shrugged and took one after all. ‘What would mummy think of you now?’ she teased him.

They lounged against a telephone box in companionable silence for a few moments. A few girls turned to stare at Johnny as they passed. Even with his baggy jeans and untidy haircut, he gave off an aura of casual elegance that few could emulate, flicking his cigarette ash lazily and smiling remotely, apparently into some unfathomable distance.

Johnny and Jez ignored the girls. They were both used to this; it always happened, as did the incredulous looks at Jez and the occasional mutterings of. ‘What’s he doing with her?’ Jez had used to find this behaviour hurtful when she was younger, but nowadays, more secure in herself, it was merely food for amusement. Johnny, on the other hand, still found it profoundly irritating, especially the giggling, which he had taken personal exception to at one time until Jez had explained it to him. ‘They giggle because they fancy you,’ she had said, ‘God knows why,’ she had added, with just a trace of bitterness in her voice, comparing her own gangly awkwardness and long freckled face with Johnny’s lean graceful physique and perfect Grecian features.

But that had been several years ago. Now she was statuesque, and her freckles had submitted to an onslaught of determined potion application and had finally surrendered (not without a fight) and were almost all gone leaving her with skin that was almost translucent, giving her an somewhat spiritual look, and revealing her cat-like amber eyes. She would never be conventionally pretty, but she was arresting and had a grace of her own, and the cruel comments had grown less and grew more often, these days, out of jealousy, which was what she found so amusing. ‘As if!’

‘I’m sorry about mum,’ said Johnny eventually. ‘She doesn’t mean anything really, she’s just …’

‘’S okay,’ Jez shrugged, ‘It’s not as if she’s the only one.’

Johnny sighed. ‘Oh she’s going to give me hell when I get home.’ He laughed ruefully.

‘Tell her I put a spell on you,’ suggested Jez.

‘That one stopped working when I was twelve,’ Johnny told her.

‘What?’ Jez was outraged. ‘You dung-heap, you didn’t?’

‘The first time she caught me smoking,’ he admitted. ‘Well she already didn’t like you, so …’

‘So, you made it ten times worse – thanks a lot.’

‘Sorry,’

‘Oh never mind, let’s go.’

‘I’ve already beaten all the games they’ve got,’ said Johnny. ‘Why don’t we just go to the park?’

‘I told you. They’ve got new stuff, virtual reality and all that. It’s supposed to be really good. Under new management I think.’

‘Oh okay,’ said Johnny casually enough, but his eyes gleamed with anticipation. He loved a new challenge.

The arcade was indeed under new management judging from the elaborate façade that had been tacked up over the old grubby sign and the surly looking bouncers that now flanked the entrance. Johnny recognised them, and his heart sank. Stanners and Briggs, the biggest bullies at Johnson Lane High, it was just the sort of job he would have expected them to take, had he ever given it any thought. Although, it was mildly surprising to him that Stanners, at least, was not in prison by now.

He pushed Jez protectively behind him instinctively and whispered. ‘Look who it is.’

Jez looked. ‘Okay,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s go.’ They would never get in with those two gorillas on the door.

They turned dispiritedly to leave, but it was too late, they had been spotted.

‘Look who it is,’ said Stanners, in unconscious imitation of Johnny. ‘It’s lanky Lulu and the pretty boy.’

Johnny clenched his fists and ignored them. He carried on walking away, but Stanners had moved in front of him and was blocking his way.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he jeered. ‘Running home to mummy?’ Johnny’s overprotective mother had been a well-known figure of fun at school. It was the wrong thing to say. Johnny’s face went white with rage; he raised his hand to strike.

Jez grabbed his arm. ‘No Johnny,’ she pleaded. ‘Let’s just go – please.’

With an effort, Johnny controlled himself. He lowered his arm and allowed Jez to lead him away. Stanners, however, was not about to let him go so easily. He grabbed Johnny by the shoulder and jerked him backwards his arm raised to punch Johnny in the face. Johnny, however, had been expecting this. He ducked, spun round, grabbing Stanners arm as he did so and punched upwards at the large paunchy chin. Stanners staggered backwards. Johnny kicked, and Stanners went down, then Briggs jumped on Johnny’s back as Stanners got to his feet.

The next few seconds were a blur. Johnny had moved so fast it was impossible to see what he had done. What was apparent when he stood back was that both Briggs and Stanners were lying on the pavement in a bloody, mangled heap, while Johnny had barely a hair out of place. Apparently, as Jez had suspected, the bullies had short memories. Johnny had taken Hap-Kido lessons since the age of nine and Karate since eleven and had achieved black-belts in both before he was fifteen. He had been forced to beat these two up once before in similarly spectacular fashion a couple of years before, and this was what Jez had feared would happen again. This was no school-yard battle; Johnny might easily be arrested this time. It was clear to anyone who had been watching, that Stanners and Briggs were no match for Johnny and the fight had attracted quite a crowd, peppered with the usual bunch of admiring girls, who would no doubt be prepared to swear under oath that Johnny had not touched the bullies. But there were plenty of other witnesses.

Still, he had only been defending himself, and there was still time to get out of here.

‘Come on,’ muttered Jez out of the corner of her mouth, tugging on Johnny’s arm. ‘Let’s go.’

Johnny’s face cleared as if he were coming out of a trance.

He shook his head sharply, ‘Uh, yeah, yeah, okay, right okay.’ And he allowed himself to be led docilely away.

Unfortunately, the terminally stupid Stanners chose that moment to stagger to his feet and chunk a piece of loose cobblestone at Jez as a parting shot.

He added insult to injury by yelling as he did so. ‘Guess you have to do what your whore girlfriend tells you to, don’t you pretty boy?’

Stanners, Geoffrey. IQ – less than ten anyway. Life expectancy – less than ten seconds. Jez summed up the situation in her head and moved with remarkable speed to hold Johnny back. Not fast enough. With a speed that seemed to defy the laws of physics Johnny kicked Stanners’ legs from under him and pinned him to the ground. He restrained himself there, however, from doing further damage and hissed menacingly at his captive. ‘What did you say?’

Stanners whimpered.

‘I can’t hear you,’ Johnny informed Stanners in ordinary tones.

‘What seems to be the trouble? Ah, I see. You two again.’ The voice came from a tall, thin well-dressed man who had emerged from the arcade. He looked down at Stanners and Briggs with an expression of the utmost contempt. ‘What was it this time?’ he drawled. ‘Didn’t like his face, hmm?’

Jez leaned forward. ‘Johnny,’ she hissed. ‘Let him up, it’s over.’

Johnny refused to loosen his grip. ‘I’ll let him up when he apologises,’ he said. ‘Maybe.’

‘I’m s-sorry, sorry,’ gasped Stanners.

‘Not to me,’ snarled Johnny impatiently.

‘Sorry Jez,’ muttered Stanners, flicking his eyes upwards, the only part of his head that he was able to move.

The tall, thin man had watched this scene without the slightest sign of interest. Now he addressed himself to his employees in a neutral manner, for all the world as if they were standing in front of him in his office and not lying, bleeding on the pavement.

‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to sack you both this time,’ he said. ‘I really cannot have you attacking my paying customers for the sake of old grudges or amusement or whatever it is you get out of it. I have a business to run, if you must pick fights with all and sundry, you must do it on your own time.’

‘I haven’t finished here,’ said Johnny suddenly. ‘You can sack him after I’ve killed him.’

The thin man raised his eyebrows at this. It may have been in amusement Jez could not tell, and then he recovered his poise. ‘Very well then, I’ll see him when you’ve finished with him. Good day.’

Johnny punched Stanners in the face again and then let him up. ‘Okay, now I’ve finished with him,’ he said, getting slowly to his feet.

‘Excellent,’ said the man. ‘I don’t suppose you’re looking for work, by any chance?’

Johnny could only stare blankly at him, still white faced and shaking with anger.

‘No, I suppose not,’ said the man, who was staring at Johnny with frank interest.

Jez misinterpreted this expression and drew her arm through Johnny’s with a possessive air, just to make things clear. After all, it would not be the first time a well-dressed older man with a slightly effeminate air had shown an untoward interest in Johnny. The man noticed her gesture and gave her an amused look, which made her feel confused.

You are very young it seemed to say. However, the man continued to look at Johnny with avid interest.

‘I do hope,’ he said with a slight bow, ‘that you will accept my apologies for this unfortunate incident and please make use of the facilities –.’

Johnny opened his mouth, shaking his head slightly.

‘On the house of course,’ continued the man smoothly, ‘to make reparation for your inconvenience.’ He bowed again, and this time the look he gave Johnny appeared to Jez to be almost – hungry?

Jez was always at her most observant whenever she was around Johnny, perhaps because she was always concerned about him (he was so unconscious of the effect he had on others, how it always invited strong emotion of one kind or another, either admiration or jealousy, and sometimes something more sinister than just admiration) but more likely because it was simply easier for her to observe others closely when all their attention was focussed on him, and it always was.

‘The peacock and the peahen,’ she thought ruefully.

Johnny, apparently noticing nothing unusual, grinned. ‘Okay, thanks,’ he said bouncing on his heels excitedly. He turned to Jez, ‘I guess today isn’t going to turn out so bad after all.’ he said.

Jez narrowed her eyes but held her peace. As they were swept in the door Jez noticed again the man give Johnny that strange, hungry look. Her stomach jolted unpleasantly.

‘I’d give anything to know what that old vampire is up to,’ she thought, resolving to keep an eye on him.

Because that was what he resembled more than anything, a sleek, smooth, oily vampire, from his plain black suit, tailored neatly to his slender frame, to his jet black hair, slicked straight back from the forehead revealing a well-defined widows peak, and his neat moustache. All he needed to complete the picture was a cloak and a cane to twirl. And he had seemed uncomfortable in the daylight outside too, just like a vampire would. Jez realised that she was letting her imagination run away with her. Just because he was skinny, pale and mysterious looking, was no reason to … After all he couldn’t help the way he looked now could he?

She looked again at him. Impartially, she supposed he was rather beautiful, much in the style of Johnny’s own good looks, the same sharp cheekbones and elegant stance, that air of casual grace. Much older of course and of a more sinister cast, but still … she could imagine him casting a spell over the more impressionable type of teenage girl and she supposed that had Johnny been inclined that way, he might have been attracted – but of course, he wasn’t.

It was dark inside and determinedly high-tech. An oblivious Johnny was still bouncing excitedly on his heels as the man, who had introduced himself rather formally as Mr. Bellême, showed him round the new facilities, letting out the occasional ‘Wow’ and ‘Cool!’ while Jez trailed, apparently forgotten, behind them occasionally rolling her eyes towards the ceiling in tolerant exasperation.

They stopped in front of a large silver cylinder, which looked to Jez’s untutored eyes, like nothing so much as a space age lift.

‘Our latest virtual reality console,’ said Bellême with a flourish as the cylinder spun to reveal a hollow tube inside, with space for a person to stand inside and, apparently, nothing else.

Johnny looked nonplussed. ‘Er …?’ he said. ‘How … um … what do you …?’

Bellême laughed showing bright sharp white teeth. Jez gave an involuntary shudder.

‘It’s quite simple,’ he told them, now including Jez in the conversation. ‘It’s all automatic, done by lasers you know, all you do is step inside and close the tube, then just follow the instructions. ‘Oh it’s quite safe,’ he assured Jez, whose eyes had widened at the word lasers.

Johnny looked as if he was going to faint with delight. ‘Can I try it?’ he begged. ‘Can we both?’ he indicated Jez. ‘Will we be able to see each other?’

‘Oh yes,’ Bellême assured him, ‘if you both go into the same world you can – play together.’

‘The same world?’ gasped Johnny. ‘How many are there?’

Bellême gave him an aloof smile, which Jez did not like somehow.

‘Oh, quite a few,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes quite a few indeed.’ And then he muttered something under his breath, which sounded, but couldn’t have been, to Jez like: Countless millions

‘What do you mean, Worlds?’ she demanded nervously.

‘Oh Jez,’ said Johnny, ‘you’re hopeless. It just means the artificial worlds in the machine, it’s just jargon, you know?’ He laughed. ‘Haven’t you picked anything up from hanging around with me all these years?’

Jez relaxed suddenly. Suddenly all her fears seemed rather silly, and Mr. Bellême caught her eye sardonically. He seemed to understand exactly what she had been thinking, and his expression was one of unimpeachable respectability injured by unfounded suspicions, but forgiving nevertheless. You are, after all, very young, it seemed to say.

‘Right, right,’ I knew that,’ she said slightly defiantly.

Johnny was still laughing at her, and she felt slightly nettled. It was not often that he could make her feel stupid or uninformed, and she did not like it at all. However, this was his area not hers and she realised that he was just bubbling over with excitement, there was no malice intended; she doubted whether Johnny was even capable of malice. So, despite the fact that, between Johnny’s amusement and the older man making her feel like a recalcitrant nine year old, she was headed for some serious sulking, she pushed it aside and forced a smile onto her face. This was partly pride. Never, never would she let this old vulture let her provoke her into behaving the way he evidently expected her to, and partly because she did not want to see the hurt disappointment in Johnny’s eyes if she had turned on her heel and marched out of the arcade. She never doubted that he would follow her remorsefully. It never occurred to her that she was being ruthlessly manipulated through her own pride and her affection for her friend, just as he was being manipulated by his boyish love of computer games. By the time she realised this, it would be far too late.

She did, however, feel a flicker of unease as she caught a last glimpse of Bellême’s face before the cylinder closed smoothly around her. He was looking intently at Johnny again, and the expression on his face she now recognised, not as hunger, but greed.

Inside the cylinder, it was pitch black, and a seductive female voice said. ‘Mapping now, please stand absolutely still.’

Jez rolled her eyes. ‘Oh honestly!’ she said. However, she was too nervous to disobey as the laser beams played over her body. Then the lights came up, and she found herself standing, not in the cylinder, but in a large bare room. In front of her, was a screen apparently hanging in mid-air and beside her was Johnny still bouncing excitedly on his heels.

She turned in surprise. ‘Oh!’

‘Isn’t it cool?’ he said. He could barely contain himself; he was practically jumping up and down.

‘Dork,’ she told him amiably, but she was beginning to catch his excitement. They both walked toward the screen; it seemed the obvious thing to do. On the screen was a list of what were apparently the games:

DRAGON HUNTER - I PLAYER +

SPEED CHALLENGE - 2 PLAYERS +

VAMPIRE EPIDEMIC - 2 PLAYERS +

DON JON CHALLENGE - 2 PLAYERS +

NEOLITHIC NIGHTMARE - 1 PLAYER +

JURASSIC JUNGLE - 1 PLAYER +

SAMURAI QUEST - 2 PLAYERS +

CRASH AND BURN - 1 PLAYER +

SKY DIVING - 1 PLAYER +

RIDE THE RAPIDS - 1 PLAYER +

SCI ‘ON

Johnny was looking at the screen in a slightly perplexed manner.

He ran his fingers lightly over the screen. ‘Neo-whatsit…?’ he murmured.

Jez shook her head decisively. ‘Cave men,’ she informed him.

‘Oh. No then,’ he agreed.

‘What about Don Jon Challenge?’

‘Oh yes, I can just see myself,’ said Jez sarcastically. ‘You been waiting for a chance to beat me up then, have you? I thought you’d have had enough of that for one day?’

‘Okay then, what do you want to do?’

‘I’m not fussy really,’ she shrugged.

‘What’s SCI‘ON?’ said Johnny frowning. ‘That’s weird it doesn’t say how many players or anything, look.’

Jez yawned. ‘SCI‘ON isn’t a game,’ she said. ‘It’s a place. In the Bible, I think. I’m not sure.’

Thus, in this casual manner, she planted the idea firmly in Johnny’s subconscious that SCI‘ON was a place – perhaps even a real place.

‘I think you mean Zion,’ he said.

‘Isn’t that what you said?’

Johnny shrugged.

‘Oh well, you’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘Sounds dull anyway, what about Speed Challenge?’

‘Sure, whatever.’

Johnny hesitated, his fingers dancing distractedly over the screen. ‘Or … well, what about this one?’ he said, pointing again at SCI‘ON.

‘What about it?’

‘Well … I dunno, maybe we should take a look, I dunno …’ He trailed off.

‘Oh make your mind up,’ said Jez.

‘Okay,’ said Johnny, sounding a lot more decisive than he felt, ‘Speed Challenge.’ He put a hand out toward the screen and then pulled it back again uncertainly. He looked at Jez. ‘It couldn’t hurt just to have a look, right?’ he said.

Jez shrugged; she was used to this. What Johnny really wanted, she suspected, was to try out all the games at once. Still he hesitated.

‘Oh my God,’ exclaimed Jez eventually. ‘I’ll do it.’ And she pushed the icon with an impatient finger.

Nothing happened.

She pushed it again. Still nothing. She grinned and shrugged. ‘Guess now we know why that one wasn’t certificated,’ she said. ‘It’s not running yet.’

Johnny looked at the screen with a strange expression of mingled disappointment and relief.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Jez. ‘There are plenty of others to choose from.

‘I know,’ snapped Johnny defensively ‘I just … I dunno.’ He shook his head. ‘Never mind, okay? Let’s just get on with it.’

Jez narrowed her eyes at him. He looked strange, flushed and feverish, although, for all she knew, she looked exactly the same. It was not exactly a normal environment they were standing in after all. But it was not like Johnny to get so agitated, and three times in one day was something of a record for the boy who normally took the words laid back to a whole new level. He was sweeping his hands back and forth over his hair again making it stand up like a bottlebrush. She wondered if he was coming down with something.

With a sudden jerky movement, he leapt forward to touch the icon. Nothing happened. Jez raised her eyebrows, this time in surprise. Johnny gave a strange half laugh and looked embarrassed.

‘Thought it might be worth a try,’ he muttered looking at his feet. Then he smiled and looked perfectly calm and normal again.

Jez felt a strange relief sweep over her. ‘Yes, well if you’ve quite finished,’ she said acerbically

‘Have I been acting like a bit of a prat?’ he asked.

‘Oh no more than usual.’ Which was not exactly true, but it restored a feeling of normality between them better than showing her concern could have done.

Johnny could not explain the powerful feelings of curiosity that had been eating him up regarding SCI‘ON. He had wanted to get in there more than he had ever wanted to do anything in his whole life – including Janine Ridley. But at the same time, he had been terribly afraid. Of what, he did not know, but once he had discovered that the door, so to speak, was irrevocably closed a great relief had settled over him. The matter was out of his hands.

Johnny was of that cast of mind that bounces back quickly. Never one to dwell on things, in less than a minute he was his usual cheerful self, the struggle of the last few minutes almost forgotten.

It was Jez who noticed that SCI‘ON appeared to have been erased from the screen.

They decided on Samurai Quest in the end, after Jez pointed out that this was VR after all, and Johnny, although multi-talented in many ways had never yet beaten Jez in any kind of race either on foot, bicycle, horseback, motorbike or go-cart. Excessive speeds, which Jez loved, made Johnny nervous, although he would never have admitted this even under torture, except to Jez of course. The only time she had ever seen him really lose his poise completely was after he had been coaxed and bullied into taking a ride on a roller coaster. Jez had told a humiliated Johnny afterwards that she had never seen anyone throw up so much, not even Duggan Macrewley after he had inadvertently swallowed a handful of frogspawn on the school science trip in fifth grade.

Johnny touched the icon first, and Jez had to hold back a cry of alarm when he suddenly vanished. Then she told herself that she should have expected that, and she got a grip on herself and touched the icon.

She caught up with him in a forest glade; he was standing under a tree just staring around him. The air was crisp, and it was cold. There were patches of snow on the ground here and there and through the trees shafts of sunlight broke, illuminating dancing motes of dust and Johnny’s bright hair. Jez blinked and took a deep breath; the cold air filled her lungs. This wasn’t right. It was too real. The forest was almost completely silent; only the sounds of distant birdcall and Johnny’s breathing could be heard.

Johnny seemed to be having the same idea; he turned to her with shining eyes.

‘Isn’t it brilliant?’ he asked. ‘Dead realistic, don’t you think?’

‘Bit too realistic,’ muttered Jez, ‘don’t you think?’

But Johnny did not seem worried, and she bowed to his superior knowledge of what was achievable in this area. Maybe the lasers …? She shrugged it off.

‘So, what are we supposed to do?’ she asked in a relatively calm voice.

‘Oh, there are instructions if you ask for them … at least…’ He looked around at a loss. ‘Usually… um …’

‘Did you ask?’

‘Well normally there’s … Okay, computer, er, what do we do?’

Silence.

Johnny shrugged helplessly. Then suddenly, the silence was broken by the sound of clashing swords and shouting. In the distance, but getting nearer, definitely getting nearer. And just then Jez caught her face on a branch as she whipped round to see where the sound was coming from, and gasped with the sudden pain, she felt her cheek gingerly with her hand. There was no doubt about it, she was bleeding. The noise was getting nearer.

‘Er, Johnny …’

The thin man, known to Johnny and Jez as Bellême, was in his office. A small glass cubicle perched above the main floor of the arcade and sealed in with dusty Venetian blinds, a relic of the last owner and clearly unsuitable to the dignity of the present management. Which was, without a doubt, the reason for the somewhat incongruous nature of the inner furnishings, a sumptuous mixture of old oak furniture and damask curtaining, instead of the folding table and deal chairs that one might have expected. How it all fitted so comfortably into the space provided, was a mystery in itself.

Most mysterious of all was the centre of this small room. In a place where space was at a premium, someone had nevertheless scooped out a large dished hole in the floor. It was empty apart from a thin coating of ash. Any medieval scholar would have recognised it as an anciently styled fire pit. Particularly as there was an actual fire burning in it even now. The only problem was that there was no chimney above it.

Bellême withdrew his gaze from the flames which he had been watching with a ravenous intensity.

‘Did you see, Stigers?’ he said, clutching a smaller, stout, red-faced man painfully by the elbow. ‘Did you?’

The smaller man winced and rubbed his elbow and said nothing, he merely nodded.

Bellême took no notice. ‘He went straight for it,’ he continued. ‘He tried to get into SCI‘ON.’ He released the smaller man and began pacing his TARDIS-like office. ‘I had a feeling about this one you know,’ he said excitedly. His eyes were burning, not metaphorically but actually. If you looked closely, it was possible to see, in his eyes, two tiny orange flames. The one called Stigers was used to this, however. It always happened when his master got agitated.

‘He may be the one. He is the one. He must be. Oh yes, yes, we’ve found him Stigers, I am certain of it. Just look at him, will you? He reminds me of a young Adonis, remember him Stigers? Such a beautiful boy, such a shame. Ah it was a long time ago.’ He smiled lightly.

Stigers was unnerved by all this good will. It was strange, to say the least, to see his master acting this way, almost like a human being. It gave him the confidence, however, to put a timid question, a hitherto unheard of liberty.

‘He