‘See, Saul,’ he whispered, ‘I’m not just going to kill you. Before you die, Saul, I’m going to make you dance for me. You think you’re so special, don’t you? Well, I’m the Lord of the Dance, Saul, and before you die you’re going to dance for me. Why do you think I let your pathetic little army fight to the last gasp?’ He indicated the dancefloor, where lacklustre little battles were still continuing, where the routed rats were being systematically destroyed as the dance continued.

‘You see, I wanted to explain to you, Saul. You see how I can make the people dance and the spiders? See how I did that? Well, I can make the rats dance, too, Saul. And you’re the famous half and half, aren’t you? Eh? The rat-boy? Eh? Well, I’m already playing for the people, Saul, so half of you is dancing, even if you can’t feel it. So when I start playing for the rats, Saul, then I’m playing for both your sides. See? See, you little fucker? I didn’t know what I’d found when I checked your address book, tried to find you. Just turned up at the one with stuff scrawled next to it… and see what I found. Your friend Natasha, who showed me how to make my flute multiply…’

The Piper grinned and patted Saul’s face gently, then backed away towards the decks. Behind him stood Natasha, her clothes ruined, her face coated in blood as thick as oil.

The dancefloor still surged, but an odd calm had settled on the stage.

‘I’m going to play for both your halves, Saul,’ he said. ‘I’m going to make you dance.’

He looked up, raised his finger like a conductor and the music changed again.

The beat was sustained, the bassline unchanged, the static and the hesitant piano continued… but the flute soared.

Across the top of the mellifluous and pointillist flute lines that seduced the dancers and the spiders, a third level of sound sprang into being. An unsettling, crawling democracy of semitones and minor chords, pauses punctuated by surreal bursts of noise, music to make the skin crawl. Rat-music.

All across the dancefloor, the rats that had not fled or died were suddenly still.

Out of the corner of his eye Saul saw King Rat stiffen, his eyes glaze and focus on something just out of sight. And as he saw that, Saul felt himself jerk upright, listened to the music, heard it with a wave of amazement, stared wide-eyed at the bursts of light around him, saw through the speakers and the walls, felt his mind open up.

A long long way away he heard a high-pitched laugh, saw the Piper lying back, being borne around the room on the raised arms of the dancers, but that didn’t bother him now. The hands that held him were gone. Saul stood and paced to the centre of the stage. All he could concentrate on was the music.

There was something just out of his reach…

Just out of his reach… there was beautiful food…

He could smell it… he could taste it on the air, and sex, he felt his cock stiffen, his mouth was watering, his feet propelled him, he did not need to think of where to walk, the responsibility had been taken from him, he obeyed the music, two tunes at once, the rat and the man, the mellow and the frenzied, spilling around each other, filling his mind.

Beside him, he was dimly aware of King Rat, pacing from side to side, his feet ponderous but enthusiastic.

‘Dance!’ The command came from across the floor, where the Piper rode the arms of the crowd like a sportsman, a hero, a dictator.

Obedience came easily to Saul. He danced.

Hardstepping.

With the fighting stopped, everyone in the hall could dance, the people and the spiders and rats that were still alive, all moving in time, getting down as one, as the Piper laughed delightedly. Saul was vaguely aware of being pleased, moving in a tight circle, eager for the food and the sex and the music, proud to be part of this hall, this great gestalt.

The Piper had ridden the tops of the dancers all around the hall in his triumph, a lap of honour, and through a blissful haze Saul saw the tall figure step smoothly back onto the stage.

Saul danced for joy, opened his arms wide. This was his epiphany, he was filled with music, two strains of music, his mind relaxed and floating, his feet revelling in the dance, gazing up and around at the bobbing bodies on all sides of him, the faces of the worshippers… Saul was ecstatic.

The Piper smiled, and Saul smiled back.

He was vaguely aware of words being spoken, felt his feet propel him forward, across the big stage, towards the Piper, who waited for him, something long and glinting in his hand.

‘… to me…’ Saul heard between beats. ‘… dance for me… come…’

He stepped forward, shifting in time to the two tunes he could hear, eager to dance.

But something was wrong.

There was a disturbed moment. Saul hesitated.

The two flutelines were dissonant.

Saul put his foot on the stage and tried to dance, but a shadow had crossed his mind.

The flutes jarred with each other. .

He was suddenly aware of their raucous discord. His hunger and desire burned as strong as ever, but he could not see, he was blind, pulled in different directions, shaken by the aesthetic antiphase of the two flutes.

And as he listened, standing suddenly outside the music, looking in, desperate to get back, he sensed the great cavity between the flutes.

And pushing its way through the gap, vibrating in his gut, ever-present, the foundation of the music, the beginning and the end-point of Jungle, there came the bass.

Saul stood poised, immobile, centre stage.

The flute and the bass surged inside him.

The flutelines swirled around him, inveigling their way past his defences, seducing him, urging him to dance, teasing his rat-mind and his humanity in turn. But something inside him had hardened. Saul was straining for something else. He was listening for the bass.

The words of a hundred slogans raced through his mind, the endlessly sampled Hip Hop and Jungle paeans to the low end.

DJ! Where’s the bass?

Bass! How low can you go?

R-r-r-roll the bass…

Da bass too dark…

Here’s the bass.

Here’s how low the bass can go.

I… I’ll roll with the bass.

Because the bass too dark…

Because the bass is too dark for this, thought Saul suddenly, with shocking clarity, the bass is too dark to suffer this, the insubordinate treble, fuck the treble, fuck the ephemera, fuck the high end, fuck the flute, and as he thought this the flutelines faded in his mind, became nothing more than thin, clashing cacophonies, fuck the treble, he thought, because when you dance to Jungle what you follow is the bass…

Saul rediscovered himself. He knew who he was. He danced again.

This was different. He was fierce, swinging his arms and legs like weapons. He danced with the bassline, rolled over the beats… ignored the flutes.

It was the bass that set the agenda. It was the bass that made the song. It was the bass that united the Junglists, that cemented their community, that built a room full of dancers, something far stronger than this hive mind.

The Piper was still waiting for him. Saul saw a renewed smile spread across his face. He had seen Saul falter. You wanted me to dance, didn’t you? thought Saul. Had to have me dance my way over to you, waltz to my death… and now I’m dancing, you think your treble won, don’t you?

Saul danced closer and closer to the Piper. The Piper held his flute close, flush with his body like a Samurai sword. The Piper’s arms were tense.

Two flutes aren’t enough, thought Saul, giddy with power. He danced on, approaching his enemy. The Piper smiled and raised his right hand, the hand holding the flute, held it high, quivering, ready to strike.

Saul came close enough to touch.

‘Now dance on the spot, ratling,’ said the Piper softly.

He swung the flute.

The strike was cocky, cavalier and ill-timed, the Piper waiting for his prey to walk into the path of the wicked silver club.