Getting back to his room, he stood there, head tilted upwards, drawing deep breaths. The comprehensiveness of his victory notwithstanding, the ordeal with the girl had left him feeling slightly weak, and he could feel the faintest stirrings of a headache coming on. Seating himself on the edge of the bed, he regarded himself in the mirror, scowling as he noticed a white hair that he was positive hadn’t been there this morning. Wincing a bit, he plucked it out and stood glaring down at it. This was probably the girl’s doing, he thought, rather unfairly. He’d known her less than half a day and already she was ageing him. He let the hair go, watching it drift to the ground, and then quickly turned his attention back to the mirror, checking to see if the hair he had just disposed of had left behind any relatives. None he could see. But then, she’d only just got here. Given time, she’d probably manage a whole lot more than changing his hair colour.

Albert shut his eyes and vowed to himself that somehow, he would be rid of this pestilence, and soon. Vow duly registered, he opened his eyes, studying himself. This time, his gaze fell upon his tie and he paused. Briefly, he thought about taking it off. Not that it was ugly, or in the least way displeasing to the eye, he knew that. But should he?

He was jerked from his musings by a shriek, high-pitched and tinny, then another one, followed by a series of short, rasping metallic sounds. Albert leapt to his feet, all thoughts of attire forgotten. A second later, he was in the kitchen. It was silent and seemingly deserted, with no sign that anything was amiss. His sense of foreboding grew stronger. He walked quicker, over to the door that led to the living room.

He opened it and stepped through into Bedlam.

It all seemed to happen simultaneously—feeling something go crunch under his foot, seeing the floor all around a battlefield strewn with the corpses of small electronic components in every direction and, at the centre of the carnage, Theo, still in his pyjamas, elbow deep in the entrails of the doomed sim-pet, furiously disembowelling it while somehow managing to maintain both a look of intense concentration and a beatific smile that belied the butchery she was perpetrating.

She heard the sound too, and looked up and waved at him cheerily with one hand, while the other continued its excavations.

‘Hey, Mac!’

‘Theo! What are you doing?’

‘Me? Nothin’. I’m jus’ lookin’ fer the animals.’

No doubt about it any more, he had a headache, and an uncommonly fine specimen of a headache at that.

‘Did you say the animals?’

‘Yeah, the animals! The ones you said was inside.’

‘Wha—why? Why?’

‘Don’t be silly, Mac! ’Cos all these things can’t look the same, can they?’