‘Graduate Intake,’ said Mike Bryant, eyes intent on Carla’s face.

Chris nodded. ‘Seen it. Great movie.’

‘That kind of macho shit doesn’t turn me on,’ Carla said flatly. ‘I see too much of the results, working salvage. See, they haven’t always finished pulling the bodies out by the time we get there.’

‘Carla’s boss spends a lot of time separating losers from their vehicles,’ said Chris, miming a pair of salvage shears. ‘Literally.’

‘Chris!’ Suki laughed again, then put one elegantly varnished set of fingernails over her mouth in mock mortification as if she’d just realised what she was laughing at. ‘Please.’

‘Okay, here’s a joke.’ Chris ignored the look Carla was giving him. ‘Who are the lowest-paid headhunters in the city?’

‘Oh, I know this one.’ Suki wagged a finger at them. ‘Don’t tell me, don’t tell me. The guys at Costermans were telling this a couple of months ago. Ohhh, I can’t remember, Chris. Go on, then.’

‘Paramedic crews on the orbital after the New Year playoffs.’

Suki’s brow creased in fake pain. ‘Oh, that’s awful.’ She sniggered, winding up to another full-blown laugh. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘Isn’t it just,’ said Carla unsmilingly, staring across the table at her husband.

Mike Bryant coughed. ‘Ah. Would you like to see that Omega now, Carla? It’s just through the kitchen to the garage. Bring your glass if you like.’

He got up and flashed a glance at Suki, who nodded on cue.

‘Yes, go on. I’ll clear these away.’

‘I’ll help you,’ said Chris, standing automatically.

‘No, it’s just loading the machine. You can help me make the coffee later. Go on, I don’t know the first thing about engines. Michael’s been dying to show it off to someone who understands what he’s talking about.’ Suki reached across and kissed Bryant. ‘Isn’t that right, darling?’

‘Well, if you’re sure—‘ Chris broke off as Carla tugged at his sleeve, and the three of them trooped out after Bryant, leaving Suki at the table. They crossed the kitchen space and Bryant threw open a door that let in a wave of cold air and a view of a wide, concrete-floored garage. The BMW stood gleaming in the light from overhead neon tubes. They filed through the door and stood around the hood end of the vehicle while Mike Bryant reached in and popped the locks. Then he set aside his wineglass on a workbench and lifted up the hood. Service lights sprang up in the engine space and the Omega Injection was revealed in all its matt grey glory.

‘Ain’t that a beautiful sight?’ Bryant burlesqued, some mutilated sub-Simeon Sands idea of an American accent.

‘Very nice.’ Carla walked around the engine, peering down into the clearance on either side. She pressed down hard with one hand on the engine block and nodded to herself. She looked up at Bryant. ‘Cantilevered support?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘Looks like they’ve mounted the weight a long way back this time.’

‘Yeah, well, you probably remember the Gammas.’ Bryant came to lean into the engine beside her, leaving Chris feeling suddenly unreasonably isolated. ‘Never drove one myself, but that was the big complaint, wasn’t it? All that nose armour and the engine too.’

Carla grunted agreement, still groping around down the side of the engine. ‘Yep. Handled like a pig. This one doesn’t, I imagine.’

Bryant grinned. ‘You want to take it for a spin, Carla? Put her through it?’

‘Well, I ...’ Carla was clearly taken aback. She was saved an answer by Suki, who appeared in the door with her hostess smile and a silver foil packet in one hand.

‘How many for coffee, then?’

‘Leave it, Suki.’ Bryant went to her and took the packet away. ‘We’re all going to go for a ride.’

‘Oh no, Michael.’ For the first time that Chris could detect, he saw a crack in Suki’s social armour. ‘You’ve drunk too much, you’re just going to get someone killed.’

‘No, Carla’s going to drive.’

‘Oh, I’ll believe that when I see it. Carla, honestly, the number of times he’s let me behind the wheel, then yanked me out again at the first serious sign of—‘

‘Don’t listen to her, Carla. Suki, it’s the weekend, it’s nearly midnight, there’s nothing on the roads. Just out on the orbital, as far as the M11 hook up. Carla drives there, I’ll drive back. C’mon, it’ll be fun.’

True to Mike’s prediction, the orbital was a ghost highway. Nothing more substantial than waste paper stirred beneath the march of gull-winged sodium lamps. There was no sound other than the rush of their tyres on the asphalt and the comfortable growl of the Omega Injection engine. Carla drove with a rapt expression on her face at a rock-steady hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, occasionally swerving from lane to lane as chunks of decaying surfacing flashed towards them. A faint rain fell on the big oval windscreen, cleaned off meticulously by the gapped speed wipers.

‘Crawler,’ said Mike Bryant from the passenger seat, as the tail lights of a transporter appeared on the sweep of motorway ahead of them. ‘Looks like it’s automated; only a machine drives in the slow lane with this much road to play with. Pass him close, see if you can trip the collision systems.’

Next to Chris in the back, Suki sighed. ‘You are such a child, Michael. Carla, just ignore him.’

The BMW flashed past the transporter, giving it a wide berth. Mike sighed and shrugged. Up ahead, the lights of a junction glowed like a UFO landing site. A massive metal sign announced the M11 ramp. Carla pulled across into the filter lane and eased off the accelerator, letting the BMW’s speed bleed away on the approach slope. They cruised to a gentle halt at the summit, just short of the roundabout. Carla sat for a moment, listening to the engine run, then nodded.

‘Very smooth,’ she said, almost to herself.

‘Isn’t it.’ Mike Bryant cracked open his door. ‘Swap places. There’s a couple of things I want to show you.’

Carla met Chris’s eyes in the rearview mirror for a moment, then she got out and walked round the front of the car, passing Bryant halfway. Bryant high-fived her, came round and fastened himself into the driving seat with a broad grin. He waited until Carla had also belted herself in, then dropped the car into gear and revved hard against the parking brake. Chris heard the wheels spin and shriek for a moment as the BMW held position, then Bryant knocked off the brake and they leapt forward.

‘Always forget that bit.’ Bryant shouted above the engine and he grinned in the mirror. The car plunged down the ramp opposite, gathering speed and hit the main carriageway of the orbital at nearly a hundred and twenty. Bryant let them cover about half a kilometre, then slapped his forehead.

‘Wait! This isn’t the way home!’

He grinned again, then hauled on the wheel. Chris heard his feet hit the pedals at the same moment and was just too late to brace himself and Suki as the BMW executed a perfect U-turn dead stop in the centre lane.

‘Michael,’ said Suki severely. ‘Stop it.’

‘Let’s try that again,’ said Bryant and kicked the BMW into another wheel-spinning takeoff. They flashed back towards the intersection, swerving into the slow lane on the slight incline under the bridge. Bryant turned round to look at Chris and Suki.

‘Now, you know that—‘

They trampled him down with their voices.

‘Michael!’

‘Look at the fucking r—‘

‘Don’t tur—“

In the time it all took to begin saying, Bryant had turned back to a more conventional driver’s posture and they were under the bridge and climbing the incline up on the other side.

‘Shit, sorry,’ he said. ‘I was just going to say, you know that truck we passed a couple of klicks back—‘

The interior of the car flooded with light as the automated transporter cleared the crest of the rise ahead and bore down on them. Suki, Chris and Carla uttered another multiple yell and this time Bryant yelled with them, louder than anyone. The transporter’s robot brain blasted them with an outraged hoot from the collision alert system and bands of orange hazard-warning lights lit up on the cab. Mike’s burlesque Sands accent reappeared, cut with wide-eyed, breathless psycho.