Doing the wanting.

Close. It was close to the station.

Street lamps flashing, music pounding, all the clocks of Manchester ticking, ticking. Eleven twenty-five. Honking the horn to part the crowd that knew nothing of the darkness that lay within them, waiting, hiding, prowling the moments, the laughter and the flashbulbs and the drunken sprees.

I had a map of the city in my head, following a black spot that crept along the streets, twisting and twisted. Hair bristle. With Kinsey broadcasting the constant changes of our whereabouts over the radio. It was strong, the black mirror in my head, like Dugg was broadcasting as well, calling me, fighting back. SOS. Distress signal. Find me, help me, retrieve me. Stop me.

Stop me.

Doing the wanting.

Somewhere the shadow and a crooked somewhere, almost lost, fading out, with me directing the driver until the shadow darkened again, the tingle like broken glass, coming into focus, sharp head-blinding focus.

'Here!'

Copcar, rollercoaster deadstop, engine panting, tyre screech. Breathe out, at last. Dust settle, slow rain, radio squawk. Out. Me, the cops, other cops. Not thinking any more, just following. Listening. Dugg, calling, calling… but so many people. Banks of the Irwell, the river. Pathway crowded, brass band music from the other side, clear.

Clock: 11.47.

Running, pushing people away. The cops behind me, some ahead already, making way, ordering people aside. Good. Clear run. Boats on the river, partying. Rave music, mixing in. But where, where now? A man and woman, distraught, shouting. 'Douglas! Little Douglas? Where?' The woman screaming and then crying to see the police, so many police. 'Please God…'

All this in a blur as…

Shadow, pitch black. Don't leave me! Find me! Crowd thinning out, gone. A fence, broken. Muddy ground behind some shops, half-built shops, can't remember. Kinsey beside me, gun out, breathing sharp. Climbing through, hair on barbed wire. Figures, ahead. Two. A man, a young boy. Boy on the

ground, clothes torn, please God__the man scrabbling about

near some waste bins, desperate, wailing he was.

Coming in close. Kinsey checking the boy. Alive, OK. She stood up, got the gun tight on the man in the shadows. 'Breakheart!'

He comes up from the darkness, turns, shocked. No, scared. No, empty. Empty sack. His face, his eyes, drawn wide, nothing behind them. Alone. He comes forward, slowly, midnight chimes from Albert Square and over the river and great cheers on the air, flash of fireworks, exploding. Breakheart's face ghosted, gaudy orange and yellow as he stumbles in the mud, the rain, 'Can't find him… lost him… can't find him… please…'

Cops all over him then, but I was moving to the wastebins. A movement there, rustle of paper, plastic sheeting. A flap of binbag. Crackle. Closer, shadow dark. Somewhere… two glints from beneath a pile of rubbish; two dark, purple eyes. Jewelled, they were, and bright with fear.

'Dugg?' Gently said, so as not to…

The shape moves, slowly first, and then rushes out of hiding, running towards me. I open out my arms, wide to receive. A voice behind, 'Don't! Don't shoot!' Kinsey's voice, but then the firing of a gun, heavy blast, burning. Burning inside me, the pain, as the shadow jerks back, pounded deep into the metal side of a bin.

'Nailed him!' A cop voice, male, edged with shock.

It slides to the ground, this lump of stuff that somebody threw out one sad day. I walk slowly towards it, hardly breathing. Kinsey at my side, 'Carter, I tried to stop him… Jesus!'

I kneel down, stroke the thing's head, his small, broken misshapen body. The eyes are open, but barely so. 'You did it, Dugg,' I say. 'You stopped him.'

The eyes, the beautiful twin-jewelled eyes, slowly close.

The shadow inside me lightens, lightens to a cloud of scent that drifts away, finally, to nothingness.

CALL OF THE WEIRD

Dog J-Loop need a good head clean. Hungry worms crawling around inside his skull, making his mind go itchy. Bad enough scratching mad on the streets of Manchester. Bad enough with his Mistress selling copies of the Big Biscuit, and her saying all the time, 'What's wrong with you these days, J-Loop? You're supposed to look boneless and homeless, not rabid and stupid!' Worse still that the good Whistle not working, because all them worms got to it. Whistle is one smart bone-ticket to the intersnout. Mistress feeds your jaws with Whistle. Then you can talk to her, through the inter-snout. Bad enough to lose the sharing, but worst of all that J-Loop's music starting to come up wrong.

J-Loop a robodog DJ at Howling Club, slipping latest Dogga tunes into the collective head of the cross-bred pack down on the floor. That night the whole pack-net very nearly collapsing when J-Loop misses a beat in his brain due to the worm invasion. Money-sucker bossman of the Howling, shouting down the DJ for the mishap.

Trotting home to Mistress-comfort.

'Dear pet, what is it?' Soft hands of the Mistress stroking all along his fur. J-Loop managing just enough intersnout to sniff the gist.

'Me got the worms, Mistress.' Hoping these ragged growls make up sense.

'Oh my poor doggy!'

Nanoworms being the fear of every good mistress; a curly intruder that make a robodog want to go off-string, being the urge to run weird.

'Oh my poorest doggy!' Mistress tugging tight on the string that binds their love together. 'Please don't leave me!'

But J-Loop no longer understanding the words, only the stroking hands. Makes for one urgent need to get the laundry done. The trouble being that J-Loop never cleaned his head before. Idea of it scary, because his tune-spinning at the Howling Club is only bootleg money. According to the Authorities, J-Loop is purely a jobless dog, linked up direct to the Basic Bones Allowance. Well known the Authorities make real cheap head-cleaning jobs of basic boners. Which laundry involves losing your robo-brain to the wave-kennel, whilst the cleaners make up new edition. Pack-rumours telling of how some dogs die in the process, it being a moment of losing your way. Scary losing of the way to a street-honed robodog.

'Loopy, don't you go being no mudpuppy now,' Princess Lickety snarls at him. She's one sleek robobitch at the Howling Club. 'Us dogness stick together, you catch the ball?'

Catching the ball real good, because dog-to-dog being his only intersnout since the worms came calling, and two days later Dog J-Loop sauntering out of the Town Hall, quite merry on the end of Mistress string, freshly laundered brain in his head. No worms, no nothing. J-Loop feel dog-ambient! Pair of them set up street-camp, J-Loop adopting perfect begging mode: front paws crossed just so, plaintive look in dewy eyes, fur raised in bristles against Manchester rain. Mistress starting out her melancholic selling-chant: 'Please help the homeless! Buy the Big Biscuit. Only fifty-four pounds!' And it's exactly now that J-Loop gets the call: yearning voice inside his brain. This no worm-sickness, this no itching; voice being strong and passionate. Constant hungering.

J-Loop goes off-string. Tugging string loose from his Mistress fingers. Running free, desperate cry chasing but no contest. Like, going weird in greyhound style!

Rain-drenched and guided, stranger's voice pointing the nose-way, fifty minutes later J-Loop arrives in Southly Poshtown. Voice making the dog scratch his claws against the front door of a big manhouse. Young girl opens the door, takes one look at J-Loop, starts to scream: 'Noodles! You've come home!'

Noodles? thinks J-Loop: Who the fuck this Noodles?

'Mummy, Noodles has come back to us!' young girl shouts back into the house, and then she's dragging J-Loop inside behind her, tugging hard on loose string.