There now seems little doubt that Professor Kalk was such a child.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE USE OF

The following incomplete document (from the Museum of Fragments) has been provisionally dated as belonging to the early twenty-first century. Although various theories have been put forward regarding the nature of the 'device' referred to, none of them has yet gained universal credence.

(text begins)

1c. The device is not to be used by children under the age of fourteen, or adults over the age of thirty-nine.

2b. If device is to be handheld, click button B to 'portable'.

2e. If device is to be shared, activate 'protection' mode.

3a. Device to be used only four times a day, unless authorization granted.

3b. Any one session not to exceed sixty minutes, or the onset of auto-shutdown by device, whichever duration is the shorter.

3c. Do not attempt to use device after auto-shutdown, unless a period of at least thirty minutes has passed.

4d. Special dispensation required for use of device in public place.

5b. In case of such breakdown (see 5a), owner of device completely to blame.

5c. In case of legitimate breakdown, device should be removed from body, and returned to point of purchase.

5d. Under no circumstances should corrupted device be left attached to body.

6a. Under no circumstances is device to be left unattended during 'dispersal' procedure.

7c. Unprotected dispersal can lead to infection of receptacle.

(text ends)

PART THREE

POISON'S FLIGHT PATH

GETTING HOME SAFELY

Gone two in the morning and a gang of us were leaving a Megadog gig at the Academy on Oxford Road, Manchester; There was me, and four people from the bookshop where I worked, and some strangers we'd got talking to. Eight of us in all, trying to get a taxi, but none would stop for such a large number, so we all start walking down the road towards the Royal Northern College of Music.

It was a Saturday night and the streets were crowded with people trying to get home. When we get to the college, the taxi rank is buzzing. I think there must have been over a thousand people in the queue. Now I don't know if you've ever seen the taxi rank that they've turned the College of Music into? The taxis leave from the basement, and the queue starts on the roof. From there you have to walk around the outside edges of the building, dropping down layer by layer till you. reach the basement level.

I think we're on the second level down, in this long curving snake of people, when I look over the balcony and see my friend Rikki on a lower level. Now Rikki used to live in Manchester, but he moved to London about a year ago and I haven't seen him since then. So I tell the party I'm with that I'm going to go see my friend.

I climb down the side of the building. Eventually I reach him, and we chat for a while. I look over the balcony again, and this time I see Ian, another friend who also moved to London. I haven't seen Ian for at least fifteen years, and he was my best friend way back then. I don't even have his telephone number, so I'm desperate to get down another level to see him. I set off climbing, but somehow climb too far, so that now he's above me, looking down. He throws a paper towel down towards me. It blows around in the wind a bit, but I catch it easily and it's got his number on it. By now I'm worried that I've lost my original party.

The next thing I know, all eight of us are in a taxi, heading for Levenshulme where I live. We're going very fast, way too fast for a taxi ride. And when I look through the window I see we're going through Droylsden, where I was born. This is wrong, because you don't go through Droylsden to get to Levenshulme.

Then it hits me. I'm in a dream!

I tell my party this news, but they all laugh at me, and say that I'm drunk. So I set out to prove it to them. I tell them that there are eight of us in the taxi, when only five are allowed to travel in one. No way would the driver let eight of us in. This doesn't convince them, so I remind them that the College of Music is not a giant taxi rank, and thousands of people don't queue for taxis all at the same time. I tell them that we're going through Droylsden, which is the wrong way home. I tell them that I've just seen two friends I haven't seen for years, both in the taxi queue. Too much of a coincidence. Then I start to hear voices…

(for my seventh birthday)

But my friends are still laughing at me. (for my seventh birthday I asked me dad to steal us a bike) So I explain the feeling I'm having, the sudden realization that it's a dream. A very specific feeling, you only get inside a dream, (not any old model mind) You never get that feeling in real life. This finally gets their attention. (Boomerang Mountain 509) Some of them are looking worried, others are getting angry. I think they're starting to realize that it's my dream, and that when I wake up, they'll simply vanish. They don't want to vanish. They're fighting against it. Still hearing these voices…

(not any old model mind, Boomerang Mountain 509)

(not any old model mind, Boomerang Mountain 509)

I offer to prove it to them, once and for all. I tell them I'll open the taxi door and step out, even though we're moving at top speed on a very busy road, (steal us a bike, steal us a bike) I tell them that no harm will come to me, because it's only a dream.

(hearing these voices, lost in the mix)

So I open the door, (pixel face boomerang) The road is just a speeding blur. I prepare to put a foot down on the road. As I step out I see a large truck hurtling down towards me.

(Boomerang Mountain 509)

Nonetheless, I do step out, only a little scared…

PIXEL FACE

For my seventh birthday I asked my dad to steal us a bike. Not any old model, mind, but the Boomerang Mountain 509. Mustard-cloud finish, all the trimmings. The forty-seven Japanese gears, the bolstered Californian frame, the Great British air tyres. Fractal steering.

'I can't locate that shit,' he says. 'How about a new computer?'

I tell him I've got two already and if he doesn't deliver the bike, I'm telling the cops about him.

'Give Melvin what he wants, you useless twat,' my mam says.

I like my mam, she can swear.

'You get to work,' my dad says to my mam, 'before we all go starving.' Then he turns back to me, saying, 'Steal your own fucking bike, you want some flash. Haven't I taught you good enough?'

Anyway, he gives in to my wishes eventually, with Mam's help, but only to turn up with a lilac-finish, nineteen-geared Wombat 207! Put stabilizers on it, I couldn't be more embarrassed.

'Well say something, you fucker,' says my dad.

'Thanks, Dad,' I say, but thinking really you should get arrested for stealing such shit.

'Happy birthday, Melvin,' says my mam. 'Go on now, you'll be late for school.'

But I had my own wheels now, and the school could go fuck itself. So I ride myself over to the old biscuit factory on Hamlet Road. It was raining like forever and the factory looked great against the sky, like a hollow skull with a thousand broken windows for eyes. My dad had his last real job there, making tons of custard creams and bourbons and digestives. But now that place didn't make crumbs, even.

Anyway, there's this waste ground behind the factory. Where they pulled down the hospital and didn't put up shit to replace it. There used to be a pond there but that got drained and now there's just a hole.

Just a fucking great hole in the ground. Absolutely!

The crew was out there, circling the hole, making a noise and riding down into it like crazy stuff off a vid game.