A curtain of light streaked out at the far end of the houses a hundred and fifty metres away. Toby's hovercraft had turned down into the gardens. Greg sensed the excitement rising in the man's mind. Toby's native instinct was telling him his prey was nearby.

Greg found it uncanny to observe, almost as though his own ability was being turned against him. He and Toby must share the same mental genotype.

"I want you to walk down to the other end of the street," he told Gabriel.

She didn't reply, standing with shoulders drooping, arms dangling at her side. Her left hand looked appalling, tumescent and inflamed. Mud had dried and cracked on it, as though she was shedding a hardened outer skin, allowing new, blue-tender flesh to break through. He refused the impulse to check his own.

"Listen, Gabriel. You must walk down the street. And when the hovercraft comes, you fall down. OK? That's all. Can you manage that for me?"

A confused frown puckered her forehead. "Walk?"

"Yes." Greg pressed his hand on her back, starting her off. "And when the light shines, you go for cover."

Gabriel's feet had found a shuffling rhythm. "Fall down?"

"That's right."

"Orders," she mumbled vaguely. "I won't let you down, Greg. I won't."

Greg left her doing her apathetic sleep walk, feeling a prize turd for using her as bait; and headed back up the street towards the wide beam of light which kept shooting out, documenting the hovercraft's progress. Algae foamed around his knees. Slithery mud tried to pull his feet from under him. Sometimes he thought he could feel the hardness of the tarmac.

The light shone out of the gap in front of him. Greg stood still, listening to the drone of the propeller growing louder, echoing back and forth across the street. The light was extinguished. A faint trace of it rippled along the roof of the house.

Toby's hovercraft drew level with him. Light slammed out of the gap, transfixing him like a rabbit in a headlamp.

A scream of ecstatic triumph burst from Toby's mind. Greg's vision was wiped out in a sparkling pink mist as his retinas were overwhelmed by a targeting laser. He lurched forwards. The warbling of electromagnetic rifle fire punctured the night. Bullets stitched a line of small craters in the algae behind him. The propeller drone rose to a crescendo as the pilot fought to turn the hovercraft.

Greg was dumped into the darkness again. The laser impact abated, and he saw a smattering of stars through the shredded gauze of cirrus clouds. He could hear the ripping sounds of the hovercraft riding roughshod over fences.

Greg felt his nerves cooling, heartbeat slowing, tension abating. Going with the flow.

He sensed the hovercraft racing down the gardens, heading back the way it'd come.