"Anything?" asked Laura, as Christmas rejoined her in the lounge.

"No keys," said Christmas. "Front and back doors are deadlocks, so no emergency exit out the back door, and no locking the front. Not an ideal safe house. Did you turn the lights on, or did they come on automatically?"

"I turned them on. It's getting late."

Christmas hit the light switch.

"Best not to alert the neighbours, nor run up a noticeable power bill."

"So what? We're just going to sit here in the dark?"

"Pretty much. Look, I found a flashlight. We can hide under the sheets and pretend we're camping, like we did when we were kids."

"Uh huh," said Laura. "That's going to happen. So if we're in the dark, are we eating out or ordering in?"

"How is it someone can be as skinny as you but eat all the time?"

"I don't eat all the time; that's why I'm hungry now. And less of the skinny."

"Oh, don't worry, I like fat girls. Always so grateful."

"God, you're offensive. And I'm not fat either."

"No, but I didn't say I liked you, did I?"

"How many times have you used that childish joke?"

"What comes after four?"

"A fat lip? Seriously, I get cranky when I'm hungry and we've not eaten since breakfast."

"Technically it was brunch, but okay. There was a grocery store a couple of blocks down the street. I'll get us something for now. Seeing you like this, I really don't want to see you cranky. Best not take the truck. I'll walk down, get the lie of the land while I'm at it. Don't go switching all the lights on, and don't answer the door to strangers."

"My life would be so much simpler now if I'd thought of that yesterday."

"There you go. That just proves my point." Christmas walked over to the front door. "I'm just grateful you're not a vegetarian. Missing you already."

And then he was gone. Laura looked around the gloomy room. It suddenly seemed so much bigger. She tugged at a dustcover, revealing a couch. Well, at least she could occupy her time while Christmas was gone.



Laura, standing in the shadows of the gloomy room, saw Christmas enter the driveway, a shopping bag in each hand. She walked over to the door and opened it for him.

"The steak had better be fillet," she said, as he entered the house. "I'm not settling for stringy rump."

"Oh, I definitely didn't get any rump steak," said Christmas, heading towards the kitchen.

"But you got steak, right?" said Laura, following him.

"Oh, if I got a stake, it would be for your heart, if I could find a target that small."

"Said the kidnapper. What did you get for dinner, then?"

Christmas placed the bags on the kitchen counter and started unloading them.

"Well, we have a loaf of bread, butter, the finest cheese any chemical plant has ever produced, apples, energy bars, bottles of drink, non-alcoholic of course. I bet you make a nasty drunk. Milk, cereals, and bathroom products for me. I assumed you packed your own."

"That's not dinner, that's a snack."

"We can't afford to give out any clues we might be here. That includes switching the power on if we don't have to. It'll be fun, like having a midnight feast."

"What are you, twelve?" Laura grabbed an apple. "What's the point of stealing a house if we have to lurk in the dark?"

"At least we have somewhere comfy to sleep tonight."

"Oh, on that note, I've bagged the master bedroom. You can have the guest bedroom."

"Nope."

"What do you mean, 'nope'?"

"The master bedroom can be seen from the front. Less chance of being seen if you use the guest bedroom. Plus there's a lean-to under the guest bedroom's window. Makes for easy egress if we have any uninvited guests. Out the back, over the fence then into those woods we saw. You wait in there five minutes. If you don't see me running across the field towards you in that time, you're on your own. Run, and don't stop."

"Ooh, spy stuff. How exciting. Of course, this wouldn't have anything to do with you wanting the biggest bedroom, would it?"

"We can't lock the front door, so I'm pushing the couch across it and sleeping there."

"Really?"

"Really. This isn't a game, Laura. I'm pretty sure they've lost us, but I can't be certain. They catch us, we disappear. Permanently. You sleep in the spare room, and if you hear anything during the night, you do exactly what I just said. You don't wander downstairs in your jim-jams clutching a golf club, you hear? You don't call out. You just run."

"Where to? I mean, if you don't run after me."

Christmas shook his head. "Don't think about 'to', just think of what you're running from. Your best bet would be to try and get to somewhere like New Zealand, somewhere with no Guild, but the important thing is not to get anywhere in particular, just concentrate on not getting caught. And while we're on the subject of jim-jams, I'd sleep in something you'd be happy wandering around the woods in. You know, a sheer negligee, a smile, something like that."

"In your dreams."

"Every night. Here." Christmas pulled out his wallet and grabbed a wad of notes. "Sleep with this, just in case. A cash trail is harder to follow than cards. If we had time I'd set up safe points, but time is against us now. We'll just have to wing it."

"So what do we do now?"

"Well, I'm going to make myself the mother of all cheese sandwiches, and then you're going to tell me how you're going to break into the Guild and plant my little friend on the server."

"You were serious about that? You really want me to break into the Guild headquarters."

"Yes, really. Tell me about it. How big is it?"

"Big. Massive. It's a small town all by itself. There's the admin buildings, but there's also the school, residential blocks, library, recreation areas, shops. It is seriously huge."

"Which means security is weak."

"I guess. Well, it depends. Parts of it, like the residential areas, are open. You could just walk in. The buildings, now they're different. You need passes and the like to enter most of the admin and the school. They have their own security. I suppose they could stop and challenge you anywhere on the site, it being private property. I was never challenged though. I don't have any super-spy skills like lock picking or anything."

"No, no, you don't want them. Forget the movies. Most security breaches are internal, or by people with enough nerve to walk straight in. What we need is some sort of excuse to get you onto the campus."

"I don't need one. I'm a Listener."

"Sure, but you can't just turn up and say, 'I was in the neighbourhood and I just thought I'd drop in'."

"Actually, yes I can. It's my alma mater. It's more than just a corporate headquarters. It's a research centre, a retreat, a place you can hide from the Nor - from the rest of the world. Listeners can just turn up unannounced, even stay a few nights, weeks even. Even if you don't book. That's sort of the point. It's not always easy, being a Listener, and sometimes you need to get away, get some counselling, be with your own kind."

"You been there before?"

"Not since I graduated."

"What do you do when it gets too much for you then?"

"I beat the hell out of my bedding. My pillow winces every time it sees me."

"Your bedding?" Christmas grinned.

"Well, that was before I met you."

"I'm going to interpret that as meaning since you met me, you've not had any violent urges. If you turned up, what sort of access would you have?"

"Well, as I said, the campus is open. If I wanted to enter any building I'd need a pass though, so the normal drill is to turn up in the reception building and register. They issue you with a card that's tagged to allow you appropriate access."

"It's all electronic?"

"Yes, you wave the pass at the turnstile and it lets you in."

"Okay, so you turn up at the centre, register, and immediately all the alarm bells sound and the Guild heavies jump on you. If you register and they don't realise you're the Guild's most wanted, then you only get access to non-sensitive areas. If they give you an access all areas pass you can still be tracked wherever you go on the campus. Not looking good so far."

"Well, don't blame me. This is your plan."

"When you register, what ID do you have? Maybe I can fake it."

"Duh! Listener, remember? I tell them who I am, and a level one scan tells them whether I'm lying. Besides, I'll be in a whole bunch of Listeners. Someone who wasn't a Listener would be pretty obvious."

"So you're scanned all the time?"

"No, of course not. And it's just a cursory scan. It's not like a Normal could get away with faking it."

"Could you lie about who you were and get away with it?"

"Not possible. Not even with trivial lies, but a fundamental one about being someone else? Not a chance."

"Okay, so you turn up at the door, say, 'Hi, I'm Laura Listener, gimme a room for a few days.' Let's just suppose you get away with that. So they issue you with a pass to the convent and library and whatever. Next obstacle is to get you into the server rooms. The only way we're going to do that is to get a geek's pass. Do Normal's work there?"

"Of course. Like I said, it's a small town. All of the service employees are going to be differently gifted. And we don't use the term 'Normals'. It's offensive."

"You used it just now."

"I did?" Laura tried to replay the conversation back. Had she really used that term? Was she becoming like Peter? "Sorry. No offense meant."

"None taken. After all, I'm not a Normal, remember? I'm sub-normal."

"So, what's plan B?" said Laura, to cover her sudden embarrassment.

"Plan B? We haven't finished Plan A yet."

"But I thought we'd established it wouldn't work."

"No, just that it's going to be difficult, that's all. Come on, you don't strike me as a quitter."

"So what do we do?"

"Eat our dinner, get some sleep and let me think on it. Tomorrow we'll find an anonymous Internet cafe and do some research." He grinned at Laura's dubious expression. "Oh, come on. If it was easy, everyone would be super-spies."