This story is not recommended for children.

I run.

Barefoot on the tiles, feet smacking like the sound effects from a cheap martial arts movie. Slap, slap, slap slap. Fire door ahead. Chipped paint the colour of old leather, tiny window showing a crazy naked woman in its reflection. I nearly knock it off its hinges. It smacks the ash block wall and the glass splinters. At least I hope it does,.

Ahead, stone steps. Three at a time - fuck! My knee doesn’t like the strain and suddenly it hurts like hell. Two at a time will have to do for now. Up ahead, another door, but it opens the wrong way. I pull at it furiously and slip past, forcing through the dead air like a blunt knife.

I’m drowning. bursting out of Fasbuck’s cellar is like making a break from a sunken ship. I need air. I need light. My lungs are screaming, my heart’s bursting. A clenched fist and flying glass. Cork shooting from a bottle. Bullet in a barrel - pistons belching steam, images flashing by, lights, steps, more doors, mirrors. All blurred, twisted, surreal. Heart screaming, lungs belching steam. Clenched lungs and flying doors. Fasbuck screaming, spraying blood. His face twisted. Clawing at the scissors.

And then, bingo: The last door. Ordinary and made to look like wood. It’s locked, of course, but I have his keys. Bloodied hands of the murderess still shaking, but I manage to force the first of the keys into the hole and twist it.

And then I try another. And another. Bayonet drill. In - twist - out. Hands go clockwork; try another, try another. Twelve keys on the chain and the tenth fits. Could have been worse. By the time I hear a click, the keyhole is an entry wound surrounded by dark, red stains.

Out of the cellar and into the house. I’m gaping like a fish, sucking the air. Daylight streams in through dusty windows, slabs of grey light almost physical in their solidity. Rough edged floorboards, milky with plaster residue. Unpainted walls chased for rewiring, sockets and cables looped like entrails. I lean against a stepladder that’s a riot of paint and plaster spatters, and wait for my heart to fit my chest again.

My hands. They’re covered.

The scissors. I’d taken them and - his expression. Stupid. He couldn’t believe it. Even when they’d first pierced his shoulder. There was the rage, and there was me. And everything else was just happening anyway. Like it could all have gone on without me in the room.

I remember finding it odd that I couldn’t stab through the skin on his shoulders. I’d hit something hard, and I just thought, “Didn’t expect that. I’ll have to do it again”. Fasbuck hadn’t been expecting it, either. He started screaming and dropped to the floor as I followed him down, point first.

Next time, a little lower. The little voice in my head was telling me to try a little lower, to push harder. And I did. I imagined the point of the scissors reaching all the way to his back. But it was still such hard work. I never realised bodies could be so unyielding.

And as he screamed, as he flailed, as he exploded in a hail of spittle, snot and blood, I stood back and watched, wondering if I’d done enough.

But then I just wanted to shut him up. He was getting to his feet and his shock was twisting into fury. What if I’d let him recover? That’s when I said it. I remember saying it out loud, like you would to a dog: “No!”. Not much of a defiant monologue, really.

And so I danced. As he forced himself up on his shaking legs like a newborn foal, I span seven twenty in the last pirouette this fucker would ever see. Maybe I’d hit a particularly thin spot, or maybe it was just the speed if my turn, but the flesh and bone of his temple offered much less resistance than his chest had.

He didn’t die straight away, though. I don’t want to think about that. His eyes, swivelling to see the point of entry. The stench as he lost his shit.

I’m not going there.

Leave it.

It’s done.

* * *

Being a Blueboy wasn’t just a case of painting yourself. It was more than that. It was a declaration, a one man manifesto. Becoming Blue meant turning your back on everything your parents thought they knew and disconnecting from their reality. Crazes came and went, each one more ridiculous than the last. Stupid shoes, strapped down tits, big hair, little hair, pubic hair. They were all just distractions invented by gigantic companies to shift new stock. The cycle was so predictable it made a mockery even of itself; invent a look, get some almost-celebrity to fall for it, alert the fashion magazines and let the herd instinct do the rest.

Kids would see Lucy Luvnit wearing her double belt and rush out to do the same. Fat, thin, short, tall. It didn’t matter. Suddenly the high street would ripple with flabby skin as every girl in the country flocked to get that Luvnit look. The fact that only about half a dozen people in the whole country could ever hope to look sexy in a double belt was irrelevant. Looking good was a damn site less important than looking right, and no matter how stupid the outfit, no matter how disgusting or inappropriate the body of the fashion victim, Nirvana could only be found in dressing exactly like everyone else.

Fashion, by is very nature proves that society is sick. When a culture becomes so empty, so utterly vapid, that people can only define themselves by looking for what ever’s next, then they truly have nothing. No foundation, no heritage. Nothing. Have you ever stopped to think about what the term “Fashion junkie” actually means? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you do it? Well, that’s what we did. It was an outcry. It was the Dada of fashion. It wasn’t about looking like some media friendly fuck-puppet. Being Blue meant you’d declared an end to all that. Fashion was finished. We were the Omega.

It was about fame. I realised it, even then. Being famous wasn’t just about getting your face on a screen. It wasn’t about getting your photograph taken everywhere you went. Fame is fractal. It’s just as exciting to be the most famous kid in the school as it is to pack out a stadium. It’s just as much a turn-on to be the cock of the youth project as it is to be signing autographs at Garbage. And that’s what Max offered. We had instant celebrity. We stood out. People “noticed.” us.

When you were Blue, you didn’t just walk. You strutted. You stood a foot taller than anyone else around you. Especially if you had the right boots. Passers by would check out the piercing on your body, and they’d look up, slowly, their eyes betraying a sense of dismay. Disapproval. And you’d just stare right back at them. Not saying anything.

And that’s when they’d swallow and look away. They’d look down at their feet and shuffle past. And you’d think - “Yes.” Because you’d know you’d won.

But being the most famous kid on the block wasn’t without its drawbacks. I took my share of beatings. Terrible thing, jealousy.

I remember one gang of Toppers were waiting for me. I saw their hats long before I saw them and I didn’t even turn around. I knew what was coming and I just walked straight into them. Okay. I know it was stupid now, but at the time it felt like the single most noble that act any human being could have made. I was Ghandi facing down the Raj.

But while I was on the floor having the hooks ripped out of my back, while I was being whipped about the head with the chains from my boots, I didn’t feel very noble any more. I didn’t feel like a martyr then. I was just plain old Trevor, crying for my Mam and waiting for it all to stop. Take it from me; Ghandi was one stupid fucker to have put up with that shit every day.

I wanted to cover my head, but as the chains lashed down I felt the skin on the back of my fingers being split. I yelped again, instinctively drawing my hands in, lying foetal on my right side as their toecaps found my kidneys. The chains bit down on my skull again with a force that made me want to count my teeth. I spat blood and tried to curl up tighter. One of them had torn the frilly knickers off me and was rubbing them in my face trying to get me to sniff them.

“Smell your fuckin’ shit you fuckin’ freak.”

“He’d fuckin’ enjoy it!”

“Frigging panty wearing arse bandit. You like being a girl? You like being fucked?”

I closed my eyes. This was turning even nastier. Somehow I had to get away before my bare blue arse became the focus of their attention. I put my weight on my hands to push myself up and cried out again. A couple of my fingers had been broken and I’d not even noticed until then.

Another smack to the head with the chains and I was back on the ground again, close enough to the concrete to taste it.

“Get his fuckin’ arms.” One of them said. “I’m gonna show this fuckin’ freak what it’s all about. Hold him down.”

Heavy bodies dropped themselves onto my shoulders, forcing my face even further into the hard floor. I was completely pinned, with just my bare legs free. My toes were bleeding as I thrashed about to try and kick them away.

Not like this, I thought.

Please

Not like this.

And then they were gone. Just when I thought my worst nightmare had come true, they vanished like phantoms. The weight that had pinned me down lifted and I heard their boots as they bolted.

I didn’t even try to watch them. I just lay there, breathing, afraid to even blink.

Maggie’s hand was cold and I flinched as her fingers curled around my shoulder. “Easy.” She said, like she was cooing to a startled rabbit. “It’s okay. They’re gone. I’ve Tabbed an ambulance.”

I turned my head to see. Even that little motion hurt. She wore a business suit, smart as you like. Starched white blouse. Slate grey skirt. Long, ginger curls, and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but when I looked up at her; well, it felt like coming home.

I tried to say something but my voice wouldn’t work. All I managed was to sob like a five year old. I remember listening to myself wailing like that and thinking it had been a long time since I’d made such a noise. But Maggie’s jacket was over me like a blanket, and the beating was over. I was safe, and Maggie held my good hand until the first of the sirens fingered their way around the concrete barricades.

* * *

It’s Saturday afternoon. Prime time for the finance pushers. Pitch side advertising space makes the money thrown at Snapperday look like spare change. Full motion hoardings showing the company logo accompanied by assorted sex kittens and flashing lights.

Saturday Soccerday. Compulsory viewing for tribal armies who will happily part with a king’s ransom to book their ringside seats, where the proles do battle by proxy under the banners of red and white, black and green, yellow and blue.

God is on the pitch, getting ready to take the corner.

They worship him. How much is he worth? Well, he gets paid enough money to buy a top of the range sports car for every seven of his heartbeats.

Bump-bump: That’s the wheels. He lets the ball rest on the grass, tuning in.

Bump-bump: The leather interior. The noise of the crowd is deafening, but he no longer hears.

Bump-bump: The metallic paint and five year corrosion warranty. He draws back his foot. A hundred and sixteen million screens across the world show a close up of the Cougar logo on his boot.

Bump-bump: Automatic Tab-deck GPS traffic flow system, complete with variable prioritiser. Pollen filter. Vari-tint windshield. The stadium hangs in slow-mo expectancy as he finds his spot in the penalty box.

Bump-bump: Self adjusting tyres with climate response technology. Crash foam deployment system with trauma guard fitted as standard. The ball deforms, wrapping itself around the boot before catapulting skywards.

Bump-bump: X-Torsion Triple burn V12 All-Torque engine. The fans erupt as the ball describes its arc in the sky. It sails towards its mark.

Bump-bump: Tonight, there will be crowd violence. Long after this match, the fans will mingle in some distant street and somebody will die. If this shot is a goal, then his team will lose a fan. If the ball goes wild, then the visitors will take the heat. It’s just the way it is.

Bump-Bump: Start a new car.

There are eight teams. Each one is a super corporation in its own right with players being traded in billions of dollars. Old folk talk about the way it used to be; about the days when every town could afford its own club. Imagine that? You could argue that every town does have a club. But they’re not the same thing. It’s the difference between a couple of drunken sailors singing along with the karaoke machine and a simulcast weekend popfest. When you can measure an audience in hundreds of millions you know you have the real deal. “The League” is an exclusive network, carefully monitored and regulated to ensure maximum uncertainty and watchability year by year.

The country simply isn’t big enough for more than eight teams. And that’s the way we like it. Smaller clubs found it harder to compete. They lost fans, lost revenue, lost heart, and finally disappeared. The bigger clubs got bigger and the fanbase grew larger, until the medium sized clubs felt the squeeze too, failing one by one as the biggest sharks in the pool swallowed up the minnows. Anyone who says Darwinism is just a theory should take a long look at the list of teams who have been relegated to the history books.

But the truth is that the punters don’t like football. If they did they would never have abandoned the old teams. What they want is spectacle. They want razzmatazz. They want glamour. And they want blood. How passionate are the fans? They tattoo their team names on their skin. They buy the customised Tab skins. They bank with their team’s credit department. They buy the new, official strip twice a year. They subscribe to the media channels. They buy season tickets to the proxy screens. They pour every drop of their liquid assets onto the pitch in a torrent of adulation, and in return they get to belong to something bigger than themselves. They are part of something more. They’re Loyal Fans, and that means something. Because the team loves them as much as they love it. They are part of the red, white, blue, or yellow army, and that’s worth everything.

They’re right, of course. It’s worth a fortune. It’s worth so much that a fifth of all money spent by band four men is pure profit for the eight global companies, which carry their ancient provincial team-town names in the same way that modern orbital bombing platforms are named after ancient sailing ships.

The half time whistle blows. More cheering. And then…

…Cheryl.

It would be nice to say that you can’t buy publicity like this, but you’d know that’s a lie. Her holo-image is in the centre of the pitch, twenty metres high and vividly solid.. The executive referees have a fantastic view up her virtual skirt as she waves to the crowd.

“Hi, guys!” Cheryl beams, grinning at the masses of adoring fans as if she’s just found herself surrounded by her closest ever friends.

They go wild, of course. They always do.

Watching all this from the comfort of Corporate Hospitality is Clara Jane. Later on she’ll be dining with some of the richest men in the business, and soccer is a business that makes a lot of rich men.

“So, can Cheryl hear you all the time?” Somebody is saying. She pulls her eyes away from the scene reluctantly, like her gaze is on Velcro. Somebody is next to her. A handsome man with long black hair. He’s dressed in a suit that’s sharp enough to slice tomatoes.

“Well, she’s distracted now, of course.” Clara tells him. “ But she’s not like a person. So she doesn’t eavesdrop out of curiosity. That’s rather a human trait.”

He smiles. “But how do you know?”

Clara laughs automatically, before frowning a little. “I, er..” She shrugs. “I take her word for it, I guess.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “I’m sorry. It really is none of my business.”

“Not at all.” Clara says. “It’s very normal to think Cheryl’s just another person, with human characteristics and failings. But it’s not how she is. She doesn’t eavesdrop because she simply isn’t interested in he minutiae of daily life. The connection we share is just another tool to her. Do you ever wonder what your Tab is doing while you’re asleep? If you’re not using it, it’s not important to you.”

The man in the sharp suit nods and turns to watch Cheryl giving her performance, silent through quadruple glazed panes. “It makes sense.” He says eventually. “Although which one of you are you comparing to the inanimate machinery? Cheryl or yourself?”

Clara frowns again, wondering whether or not to be insulted. But before she decides, the man has another question.

“You say she’s distracted now. Does that mean this is a live performance? I mean, it’s not just some boil in the bag pre-recorded routine?”

“Not at all. What ever happens out there is as close to Cheryl as you’ll get. Her consciousness -or at least the part of her consciousness that’s responsible for sensory input- is patched into the stadium security system. She’s watching the crowd with a thousand eyes.”

The man frowns and says nothing for a while. Cheryl is giggling at one of her own lines and looking adoringly at the punters in stand G17. “I’m not sure I feel comfortable with that.” He says, eventually.

Clara looks up at one of the electronic eyes in the ceiling and feels an uncomfortable chill run down her spine.

Later, Clara Jane enjoys the company of the executives. She’s networking like a star, winning friends and influencing people. Cheryl is with her every step of the way, of course. All Clara has to do is relax and repeat what ever the voice in her head tells her to say and laugh in the right places.

[“Remember.”] Cheryl had told her. [“What ever happens, smile and let your eyes sparkle. I’ll fish you out of any deep water. Just relax and let it happen.”]

So, for the next three hours, Clara meets a very large number of people. She smiles, she shakes hands, she listens for Cheryl’s voice and repeats exactly what she’s told, right down to the smallest inflection.

“How are you enjoying the evening?” It’s the man in the sharp suit again.

Clara turns to him and has to stop herself from answering automatically. She almost thought he was speaking to her. [“This is Reuben Porter, head of marketing for Cougar Sportswear.”] Cheryl tells her after scanning her databanks for the briefest second. [Relay, please: “Hi! I’m having a ball!”]

Clara works it, grinning widely, becoming Cheryl.

Reuben nods, narrowing his eyes as if trying to read small print. “And am I addressing Cheryl or Clara, right now?”

“My aide is having a fine time, too, Mister Porter. If you like I could go offline while you have a chat?” Clara tells him, relaying the i-con’s words with a rather self conscious smile.

Reuben’s eyes don’t change, but a slow look of amusement creeps across his face. “I think this might take some getting used to, Cheryl, but it’s wonderful to finally meet you, er… Well, I was going to say in the flesh.” He stumbles with genuine awkwardness.

Clara laughs for her employer. “It’s fine. I know what you mean! Clara’s a whole new lease of life to me. You know, like those little inventions that you suddenly realise you couldn’t possibly do without?”

“But, tell me, Cheryl. Forgive me if I seem a might rude. You have no physical control over Clara’s body? Is your host in a trance, or some other altered state?”

“An idiot savant? By no means: Tell him Clara.” Clara looks momentarily embarrassed. “Er… I don’t think I was supposed to vocalise that last bit!” And then she laughs for herself.

Reuben joins in, sharing the moment. A waiter passes with a tray and he liberates two flutes of champagne.

“Not for me, thanks.” Clara says. “I don’t use alcohol and it plays havoc with the biokinetics.”

Reuben shrugs. “Oh well. Sorry to do this in front of a tea-totaller, Clara, but it’s a shame to waste good shampoo.” He downs both glasses in quick succession while Clara giggles.

“So how did you like the game?” She asks, sweetly.

“Oh, it was a treat, wasn’t it? At least what I saw of it. To tell you the truth I spent most of it working.”

“Ah, the curse of the successful.” Says Clara. “At least you caught most of my performance. Oh, and my dear Clara is quite correct: That was a live show out there. I really don’t think a boil in the bag pre-recorded routine can engage the audience in the same way, do you?”

Reuben and Clara share a wide eyed look. Neither of them were expecting her to say that.

* * *