But Jack was nowhere to be seen.

The handcuffs he had been wearing lay on Sam Maggott’s desk, their locks picked with a paperclip.

Now, it’s never easy to escape from a police station. Especially during the hours of daylight. And especially when naked.

And Sam set off the alarm, which had police all running about. And Sam opened his office door and shouted at the feisty young policewoman and the troubled young detective who was smoking a fag and chatting her up. And all the other policemen and -women in the big outer office. And he berated them and ordered them to reapprehend the naked escapee at once, or heads would roll and future prospects be endangered. And police folk hurried thither and thus, but Jack was not to be found.

Jack eased his naked self along the air-conditioning duct. The one he’d climbed into from the police chiefs desk, through its little hatch, which he had thoughtfully closed behind him. He was uncertain exactly which way he should be easing his naked self, but as far away from the office as possible seemed the right way to go.

“I don’t bear the man a grudge,” said Jack to himself as he did further uncomfortable easings along. “And I do think his wife treated him unfairly. But even though I am a youth, in the early bloom of my years, I am drawn to the conclusion that life is not fair and the sooner one realises this and acts accordingly, the less one will find oneself all stressed out in later years.

“I think that I will remain single and use women purely for … OUCH!” and Jack snagged a certain dangling part upon a bolted nut.

And as chance, or coincidence, or fate, or something more, or less, would have it, at that very moment, and many miles south of Jack, and many floors beneath the desert sand, Eddie Bear was having trouble with a nut.

“Nuts?” said Eddie, taking up a nut between his paws and peering at it distastefully. “Nuts? Nuts? That is what you’re offering me to eat?”

The other Jack grinned into Eddie’s cage. “That’s what bears eat in the wild, isn’t it? Nuts and berries.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Eddie. “I never associate with such unsophisticated company. I’d like a fillet steak, medium rare, sauted potatoes –”

The other Jack kicked at Eddie’s cage. “Eat up your nuts,” he said, “like a good little bear. You’re going to need all your strength.”

Eddie’s stomach grumbled. And Eddie’s stomach ached. Eddie didn’t feel at all like himself. He wasn’t feeling altogether the full shilling, was Eddie Bear. “What do you want from me?” he asked. “Why have you brought me here?”

“You have to pay for your crimes,” said the other Jack.

“I’m no criminal,” said Eddie.

“Oh yes you are. You and your companion shot down one of our spaceships. Murdered the crew –”

“Self-defence,” said Eddie. “Your accusations won’t hold up in court.”

“Would you care to rephrase that?”

“No court involved, then?” said Eddie.

“No court,” said the other Jack. “No court and no hope for you.”

“What are you?” asked Eddie. “What are you, really?”

“I’m Jack,” said the other Jack. “I’m the Jack this side of The Second Big O. I’m the Jack in this world.”

“An identical Jack?” said Eddie. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, we’re all here, human counterparts, reflections of your world – or rather your world is a reflection of ours. We’re all here, even you.”

“The murdering me,” said Eddie, peeping through the bars of his cage. “The me who murdered the monkeys and the band and the orchestra?”

“And all the rest, soon. The contents of your world will be sucked into ours. For our use.”

“But for why?” asked Eddie Bear. “To be produced as giveaways for promoting the sale of fried chicken? That’s as mad as.”

“You eat up your nuts,” said the other Jack. “I’ll be back in a little while. Don’t make me have to ram them down your throat.”

And with that the other Jack turned to take his leave.

“Oh, Jack,” said Eddie.

The other Jack turned.

“When my Jack gets here, as he will, he’ll really kick your ass.”

And in his air-conditioning duct, Jack snagged his ass on a pointy something. And whispered, “Ouch!” once again.

Jack could hear lots of sounds beneath him. The sounds of the alarm and the sounds of shouting and of running feet. And if his hearing had been a tad more acute he would have been able to discern the sound of gun cabinets being opened and pump-action shotguns being taken from these cabinets and loaded up with high-velocity cartridges. But there is only so much that you can hear from inside an air-conditioning duct.

Jack added to the easings along he had formerly done with more of the same, but more carefully. Where exactly was he now?

Light shone up through a grille ahead. Jack hastened with care towards it.

“Hm,” went Jack, peering down. “Corridor, and by the look of it, deserted. Now the question is, how might I open this grille from the inside and lower myself carefully to the floor beneath?”

Good question.

Jack put his ear to the grille. Alarm, certainly … Ah, no, alarm switched off. Running feet? Shouting? Not in this corridor. Jack took a deep breath, then took to beating the grille. And then beating some more. Then rattling everything around. Then beating some more.

And then screaming, as quietly as he could, as the length of ducting containing himself detached itself from its fellow members and fell heavily the distance between the ceiling to which it had been attached and the floor beneath.

Which was uncarpeted.

Exactly how long Jack was unconscious, he had no way of telling. The police had confiscated Jack’s watch. And it no longer worked anyway. Jack awoke in some confusion, crawled from his fallen length of aluminium ducting, climbed to his feet and rubbed at the bruised parts, which comprised the majority of his body. Wondered anew exactly where he was.

A sign on the wall spelled out the words:

POLICE CELLS: AUTHORISED ACCESS ONLY.

“I think that’s fair,” said Jack. “I deserve a little luck.”

And Jack made his way onwards upon naked feet.

And presently reached the cells.

Now, as we all know, and we do, police cells contain all kinds of individuals. And, curiously enough, all of them innocent.

It is a very odd one, that – that all police cells contain innocent, well, “victims”, for there is no other word. As do prisons. Prisons are full of folk who have never confessed to any crimes. In fact, all of them pleaded innocent at their trials. And even though the evidence piled against them might have appeared, on the face of it, compelling and condemning, nevertheless the “victims” of “circumstance” and “injustice” protested their innocence and were unjustly convicted.

Odd that, isn’t it?

Jack peered through another little grille, this one in the door of the first cell.

Here he espied, a-sitting upon a basic bunk, an overlarge fellow, naked to the waist, his chest and torso intricately decorated via the medium of tattoo.

“Wrong cell,” said Jack. Although perhaps too loudly. As his words caused the overlarge fellow to look up, observe Jack’s peering face and rise from his basic bunk.

Cell two presented Jack with a small well-dressed gentleman who rocked to and fro on his basic bunk, muttering the words, “God told me to do it,” over and over again.

“Definitely wrong,” said Jack.

And this fellow looked up also.

In the third cell Jack observed a number of Puerto Ricans. They sported bandannas and gang-affiliated patches. Jack recognised them to be the kitchen workforce he had employed the previous day.