‘No one tells me to shut up!’

‘I’m telling you now. Just because you’ve got a mind like a, a hammer doesn’t mean you have to treat everyone else like a nail. Now – here they come again . . .’

Wobbler took the disc out of the drive and looked at it. Then he felt around the back of his computer in case there were any extra wires.

That Johnny . . . he was the quiet type. He always said that all he knew about computers was how to switch them on, but everyone knew about computers. He’d probably messed around with the game and given it back. Pretty good. Wobbler wondered how he’d done it.

He put the disc back in and started the game again.

‘Only You Can Save Mankind’ . . . yeah, yeah.

Then the inside of the starship. Missiles, guns, score total, yeah, yeah . . .

And stars ahead. The sparkly ones you got in the game. He’d done much better ones for Voyage to Alpha Centauri.

No ships to be seen.

He picked up the joystick and moved it, watching the stars spin as the ship turned . . .

There was a ship right behind him. Very much behind him. Dozens of ships, again. Hundreds of ships. All getting bigger. Much bigger. Very quickly.

Very, very quickly.

Again.

When he got up off the floor and put the leg back on the chair, the screen was all black again, except for the little flashing cursor.

Wobbler stared at it.

Logic, he said. Not believing in logical reasons was almost as bad as dropping hot solder on to a nylon sock. There had to be a logical explanation.

One day, he’d think of one.

‘They’re following us! They’re following us!’

Little coils of smoke were coming up from the controls. There were all sorts of vibrations in the floor.

‘I’m pretty sure we can outrun them,’ said Johnny.

‘How sure?’ said Kirsty.

‘Pretty sure.’

Kirsty turned to the Captain.

‘Have we got any rear guns?’

The Captain nodded.

‘They can be fired from here,’ she said. ‘But we should not do that. We have surrendered, remember?’

‘I haven’t,’ said Kirsty. ‘Which one fires the guns?’

‘The stick with the button on the top.’

‘This? It’s just like a games joystick,’ she said.

‘Of course it is,’ said Johnny. ‘This is in our heads, remember. It has to be things we know.’

The screen showed the view behind the fleet. There were green ships bunched up behind them.

‘They’re coming right down our tailpipe,’ said Kirsty. ‘This is going to be really easy.’

‘Yes, it is – isn’t it,’ said Johnny.

There was a dull edge to his voice. She hesitated.

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘Just dots in the middle of a circle,’ said Johnny. ‘It’s easy. Bang. Here comes the high score. Bang. Go ahead.’

‘But it’s game space! It’s a game. Why are you acting like that? It’s just something on a screen.’