‘Listen, I hate that name!’

‘I’ve got to call you something,’ said Johnny. ‘What do you call yourself?’

‘If you tell anyone else I’ll kill you—’

‘I thought you were planning to do that anyway.’

‘I don’t mean just kill you, I mean really kill you.’

‘All right. What’s your game name?’

‘Sigourney – you’re laughing!’

‘I’m not! I’m not! It was a sneeze! Honest! No, it’s a . . . good name. Very . . . appropriate . . .’

‘It’s just dreaming, anyway. I’m dreaming this. You’re dreaming this.’

‘So what? Doesn’t make things unimportant.’

There was some more silence with the scratchy suggestion of music in the background, and then: ‘Ah-ha! While we’ve been talking, Mr Clever, I’ve targeted missiles on you!’

Johnny shrugged, even though there was no way she could see that.

‘Doesn’t matter. I thought you would, anyway. So we kill each other. Then we’ll have to go through all this again. It’s stupid. Don’t you want to find out what happens next?’

More scratchy music.

‘I can hear scratchy music,’ said Johnny.

‘It’s my Walkman.’

‘Clever. I wish I’d thought of that. I tried dreaming my camera, but the pictures weren’t any good. What’re you listening to?’

‘C Inlay 4 Details – “Please Keep This Copy For Your Records”.’

There was another scratchy pause.

Then, as if she’d been thinking deeply, she said: ‘Look, we can’t be in the same dream. That can’t happen.’

‘We could find out. Where’d you live?’

This time the pause went on for a long time. The ScreeWee fleet appeared on the radar.

‘We’d better move,’ said Johnny. ‘They’ve started firing. Something’s happened to the Captain. She’s the one that wanted peace in the first place. Look, I know you live in Tyne Avenue or Crescent or somewhere—’

‘How come we live so close?’

‘Dunno. Bad luck, I suppose. Look, they’re going to be in range soon—’

‘No problem. Then we shoot them.’

‘We’ll be killed. Anyway—’

‘So what? Dying’s easy.’

‘I know. It’s living that’s the problem,’ said Johnny, meaning it. ‘You don’t sound like someone who takes the easy way.’

C Inlay 4 Details played on in the distance.

‘So what do you have in mind?’

Johnny hesitated. He hadn’t thought that far. The new Captain didn’t seem to want to talk.

‘Dunno. I just don’t want any ScreeWee to get killed.’

‘Why not?’

Because when they die, they die for real.

‘I just don’t, OK?’

Several fighters had left the fleet and were heading purposefully towards them.

‘I’m going to try and talk one more time,’ he decided. ‘Someone must be listening.’

‘Nerdy idea.’

‘I’m not much good at the other kind.’

Johnny turned his ship and hit the Go-faster button. A few shots whiffled harmlessly past him and did a lot of damage to empty space.

And then he was heading at maximum speed towards the fleet.

Music came over the intercom.

‘Idiot! Dodge and dive! No wonder you get shot a lot!’

He wiggled the joystick. Something clipped one of the starship’s wings and exploded behind him.