‘Yes?’ said Yo-less, in a kind voice. ‘And why do you think this?’

‘Well, look at all the advertising,’ said Bigmac, waving a fry in the general direction of the rest of the burger bar. ‘There’s this happy land you go to where there’s lakes of banana milkshake and – and trees covered in fries. And . . . and then there’s the Hamburglar. He’s the Devil.’

‘Mr Zippy’s advertised by a giant talking ice cream,’ said Wobbler.

‘I don’t like that,’ said Yo-less. ‘I wouldn’t trust an ice cream that’s trying to get you to eat ice creams.’

Occasionally they talked like this for hours, when there was something they didn’t want to talk about. But now they seemed to have run out of things to say.

They all looked silently at Johnny, who’d hardly touched his burger.

‘Look, I don’t know what’s happening,’ he said.

‘Gobi Software’re going to be really pissed off when they find out what you’ve done,’ said Wobbler, grinning.

‘I didn’t do anything!’ said Johnny. ‘It’s not my fault!’

‘Could be a virus,’ said Yo-less.

‘Nah,’ said Wobbler. ‘I’ve got loads of viruses. They just muck up the computer. They don’t muck up your head.’

‘They could do,’ said Yo-less. ‘With flashing lights and stuff. Kind of like hypnosis.’

‘You said before I was making it all up! You said I was projecting fantasies!’

‘That was before old Patel went through half a dozen boxes. I’m glad I saw that. You know she actually got another copy and her money back, actually?’

Johnny smiled uncomfortably.

Wobbler drummed his fingers on the table, or partly on the table and partly in a pool of barbecue sauce.

‘No, I still reckon it’s just something Gobi Software did to all the games. Cor, I like the virus idea, though,’ he said. ‘Humans catching viruses off of computers? Nice one.’

‘It’s not like that,’ said Johnny.

‘They used to do this thing with films where they’d put in just one frame of something, like an ice cream or something, and it’d enter people’s brains without them knowing it and they’d all want ice cream,’ said Yo-less. ‘Subliminal advertising, it was called. That’d be quite easy to do on a computer.’

Johnny thought about the Captain showing him pictures of her children. That didn’t sound like hypnosis. He didn’t know what it did sound like, but it didn’t sound like hypnosis.

‘Perhaps they’re real aliens and they’re in control of your computer,’ said Yo-less.

‘OOOO – eee – OOO,’ said Bigmac, waving his hands in the air and speaking in a hollow voice. ‘Johnny Maxwell did not know it, but he had just strayed into . . . the Toilet Zone . . . deedledeedle, deedledeedle, deedledeedle . . .’

‘After all, you’re supposed to be leading them to Earth,’ Yo-less went on.

‘But that’s just their own name for their own world,’ said Johnny.

‘You’ve only got their word for it. And they’re newts, too. You could be bringing them here.’