'Oh God, I'm sorry.'

That's fine.'

'I was trying to kill it.'

'I said it's fine.'

I realized that I was naked in front of the kid. Walking slowly back into my room, all I could think about was getting dressed. I even put on the mask, I don't know why. I put it on first, as though it could still protect me. I went back into the living room, took the gun from Lucy's clutched hands, just as my bleeper went off.

'Muldoon, that you?'

'Yes.'

'You heard?'

It was Gumball, and I could hear his voice clearly, no sticky chewing sounds. I knew it was bad then. 'It's Parker?'

'Yeah. He found a way. You'll want the details, right?'

'No. No details.'

'Right. Look… erm… shit, I'm no good at this stuff. I'm sorry. Oh shit. Look, they got a partial trace on the killer trans, it's coming from the Ancoats area. We're doing a house-to-house. You up for it?'

'No. I'm going to the arcade.'

'The arcade? You're not on tonight. Are you all right, Muldoon?'

'Fine. I'm fine. Goodbye.'

I broke the connection, just ripped the bleeper off my belt, wires dangling. Lucy was looking at me scared, as I took up the spoiler gun, reversed it, and with the reinforced butt smashed in the TV's screen, killing that stupid poor innocent elephant dead. 'Come on,' I said, grabbing the girl by a skinny little forearm.

'But where?'

'Shut up.'

I wasn't sure when it would kick in, the suicide impulse. Some cases had taken at least a week for the urge to strike, others felt it in seconds. So time was everything, making me drive like a madwoman, swerving the jeep, a crazy snake through the traffic. I wasn't even sure why I was going to the arcade, but it was my natural hunting ground, after all. I had this intense feeling that I was needed there.

'I thought we were going to the commcop station,' said Lucy.

'Not yet.'

'But miss, what if you…?' She couldn't finish the sentence.

This is between you and me, kid,' I said to her. 'You understand?'

'It's a secret?'

'Yeah. A secret.'

'OK.'

I looked at the girl; she was small and slight, making herself even smaller by pressing back into the seat. Her eyes were blank, fixed on the badly lit road ahead, the arcade that loomed suddenly over us now, all twelve storeys of it almost bending down to receive me.

I drove into the service entrance, through to the underground park. Another commcop car was there, and Gumball was leaning against it. He called out my name, but I just swerved away from him, heading for the up-chute. I could hear his starter engine growl and echo in the hollow space, the screech of tyres.

First storey. Second. Now he'd turned his siren on, as though I should care any more. Third storey, fourth, fifth. I was burning the curves of the building. Six, seven, and Lucy was screaming at me to slow down, to stop, to just please stop now please. I couldn't. The storeys were unfolding, upwards, upwards. Eight, nine, ten. I think I lost Gumball around there. I lost everybody. There was just me and the girl and the stairway leading me on. I had to get to the top. If I could only get to the top, I'd be OK then. Something good was waiting for me there. Eleven, twelve. I jammed the car against a barrier, smashing the bonnet flat. Electrical sparks rose from the engine and the girl was crying now as I bundled her from the vehicle.

'Please! Don't-'

I didn't have anything to say in reply. Grabbing her by both wrists, I dragged her to the metal door that led to the roof. With a kick I released the locking bar, banged it open, pulled the girl through behind me.

Release! I came to, out of some dumb freeze. Felt like I was breathing, for the first time in hours. The whole trip upwards, a superzoom of quick fire. But how fine everything was now, standing on top of Manchester. All this was mine - the black spaces, the glittering lights. Chill breath of air, first spots of rain, the child at my side, barely struggling.

'Let me go,' she said.

'Not yet,' I answered, throwing the gun to the ground. 'I need you still.' And tearing off the scattermask, throwing it down as well. So much spent trash in my life. A glimmer to my right turned me around. There, oh there! The stairway continued, ever upwards, made but of cloud. It was simple, and so clean, and all I needed to do was carry on climbing. There the pleasure awaited me. There it waited, and what else was there to do? With a violence that shocked me, I gathered the girl off her feet, lifted her up into my arms.

'Please. What are you doing? Stop it, please. Please stop it!'

She had a weight, but it was nothing really, a mere shadow. And the words of the shadow were but textures in the night. Only the staircase mattered, only the golden way. I started to walk towards it, towards the edge of the building. I took a few steps, and the girl was struggling, but nothing I couldn't handle. Within moments, out of another freeze, there I was, balanced on the tip of the night. Below me, and all around, the silent, pained city lay so distant it barely shimmered.

'Muldoon!'

A voice from behind, the clang of a metal door.

'Muldoon! It's me, it's Gumball. What's going on?'

'Stay away.'

'It's the stairway!' cried the girl in my arms. 'She's seen the stairway!'

'Come away, Muldoon. Come away from the edge. We're moving in on the trans. Muldoon, we've got a trace.'

'Stay away, Gumball! I have to do this.'

'Put the girl down, then. There's no need to-'

'Shut up!'

I looked ahead. The girl had gone quiet now. It was a cruel and terrible thing to do, and I don't know what passion drove me there. Only the need to challenge, I suppose. I had to set myself up against the advert, see who was strongest. It could make me kill myself, that was easy. Could it make me kill another, an innocent?

Gently, so gently, I put my foot on the first step. The cloud shivered. The girl held on tight to me, and it was all I had left.

The rain hit me.

Hit me cold.

I stepped back. Unfroze. The stairway shivered again, then became a mere gust of wind and the droplets of the rain, vanishing.

I got the girl safely to the floor, where she ran into Gumball's arms. I picked up the gun and the mask.

'OK, Gumball,' I said, moving towards the door. 'Let's go find the bastard.'

BLURBS

I was only five images old when I got my first Blurb. Mummy Wave bought it for me, a present for my first ever press conference. Oh, she was so proud! Her only daughter, the youngest girl in the street to achieve a press-con.

Imagine the headlines. The in-depth analysis: YOUNG GIRL WITNESSES VICIOUS MURDER. ANGRY MOTHER DEMANDS PUBLIC RECOGNITION FOR GRIEVING CHILD. NEW VIRUS INFECTS GAMEWORLD™. AUTHORITIES AT A LOSS TO EXPLAIN THE KILLING.

This is how it happened: Tommy Smart was my best-ever friend, and I miss his tactics dearly. We were playing Corporate Sleazeball™ on the Game-Pimp™. Tommy was so good, he'd already scored seven freebies, five perks, four liquid lunches and two complete takeover bids against me, easy pickings, before the bad thing happened. At first it was just a whirling shadow at the very edge of my game-vision, like a mild intrusion from reality, nothing to be scared about. Perhaps our collected mummies were calling to us, to come eat?

Before I knew quite what was happening, the shadow shape had pounced on Tommy, hard and fast. It splintered his game-play into a million pieces and then sucked his image clean away. I pulled out of the Pimp, double quick and falling…

Into my mother's arms. Back to the Real World™, as Tommy's image drained away to zero before my startled eyes.

Marketing disaster!

Zero-image is a kind of slow death. Tommy didn't really die, he just became a nobody. I couldn't bear to play with him now that he had no flaunt, no flourish, no publicity value. I guess that being privy to his erasure made me too famous, far too quickly. Whatever, the Commcops™ soon came knocking, and I was hauled off to give the press-con. I had to give this tear-stricken speech about what a noble player Tommy Smart had been. The news hounds asked me a ton of questions about the monstrous virus that had wiped Tommy's image off the map. I said it was a twisting whirl of data-smoke, dark and brutal, like a tornado, only more fashionable. I was already learning how to work the media.