Sasha awoke curled up under the blanket on one side of the bed. She propped her head on the pillow, listening to a faint buzz from the dark form blocking the other side, until sunlight pierced the gaps in the blackout curtains, revealing Dean in his undershorts lightly snoring. A feeling of desire pimpled her arms with goosebumps. Keeping her legs squeezed tight, she leaned over and touched his long green hair.

"Wake up," she whispered. "it's daylight."

He gave a whistle and a snort, then rolled over onto his other side.

"Psst!" she said, blowing in his ear. "It's me, Sasha. You gotta wake up."

"Sasha?" With startled recognition, he peered at her through gummy eyes.  

She clamped a hand over his mouth and slid the other hand under his hair,  touching the back of his neck. "Shush." She chuckled, her hand slipping from his lips. Tingling at the feel of his skin, she ran her fingers along his cheekbones.

He raised his head and fully opened his eyes. "I'm gonna be late for work." He furrowed his brow. "Oh, no I'm not. I'm on the run. I'm a fugitive from justice."

"So am I," she whispered. "We're both on the lam. So what are we gonna do next?"

"I'll find the others, and see what we're having for breakfast."

She lay under the blanket, listening, while he stumbled out of bed, shuffled across the floor, and wriggled into his clothes. She heard him padding into the kitchen and talking to Chas, Slim, and Chloe. She tossed aside the rumpled blanket, rolled out of bed and pulled on the yellow shirt and yellow jeans, muttering curses at not having her army shirt and camo pants.

Slim was slicing a lump of cheese when she walked into the kitchen. 

"It's cheese on toast for brekkie--unless you want to make Welsh rarebit." Penny's gruff tone almost startled her.

"Cheese on toast sounds fine." The others were crammed around the kitchen table, with one extra chair next to Dean near the blacked-out window. She scooted over to it.

Her owlish specs twinkling, Stella, in brown slacks and a powder-blue cord jacket, sat on her other side and poured tea. Next to her, Penny wore the faded denims and yellow boots many activists favored and was debating heartily with Chas.

"It's all very well soaking the rich and the gainfully employed," Chas was saying, "but when they choose to make money off the books or skip off to the States to pay lower taxes, you're in deep trouble."

"Arseholes," Penny snarled, lifting a mug of steaming tea to her lips. "Anybody who's earning money from a well-paying job, while the rest of us are on bloody BNI, should pay their fair share."

She drained her mug with a few quick gulps. "That tea was scalding hot, Stell," she said to Stella. "Just the way I like it."

"Raising taxes would make this country about as nice to live in as a Martian colony," Chas scoffed. 

"You're talking bollocks," Penny replied. "When socialist policies have had a chance to work, we'll have a first-class health service, an education system second to none--"

"--with peeling walls and a shortage of beds in the hospitals, and overcrowded classrooms in the schools."

"Do they always go on like this?" she asked Dean.

"Pretty much." He gave her a sly grin. "So what are your plans for the day, Sasha?"

She swallowed the toast she'd bitten off and her lips curved into a smile.  "Well, since it's July, I thought I'd head for the beach."

He laughed. "I'd love to go with you, but we'd have to wear disguises or the purples'll recognize us--what with our distinctive bodies."

"Hmm...so no bikini for me or speedos for you. How about a stroll in Hyde Park, then?"

She started sipping from a mug of hot tea, and the tingling in her body returned. Dean was playing footsie with her under the table.

"Steady, mister. I've got a boyfriend, you know." She pushed her foot against his probing toes and began to blush.

She had one hand on her lap and felt his fingers gently seeking hers. They sat for a moment, their hands joined, and she knew she would have to break the spell she was slipping under.

"What kind of work do you do?" she said.

"I'm a physicist," he said lamely. "Now I've really killed my chances, haven't I?"

"Why? It sounds interestin'." She put her mug down and began fiddling with the knife beside her plate. "What branch of physics d'you work in?"

"Branch?" His voice started to crack with silent laughter. "Ultra low-frequency sound and its effects. So I guess you could say I'm a sound guy."

She let out a sigh. A guy who loves dumbarse puns. Oh well...

"Where d'you work?" 

"At ELU--East London University--in a building called the Corkscrew."

He brushed a hand against her cheek and she closed her eyes at the softness of it. "You ask a lot of questions," he said. "Can I ask you one?"

"Shoot."

"How did you get mixed up with those spooks from Catalysis?"

Christ, now he's put me on the spot.

He saw the strain on her face. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"No, I'll tell you," she said. "Two years ago when I was fifteen, after I ran away from my last foster home, I was sleepin' rough on a railway station. That's when I met this guy--"

"--from Catalysis?" His interruption jolted her out of the memory.

"Yeah, his name was Klar and he was nice to me at first..."

"At first? I don't think I want to hear the rest of this right now. Maybe you can tell me later."

She felt a flush of relief. "Okay. Can I ask you one more question?"

He nodded.

"Who's that woman you were talkin' to last night--the friend who's havin' work problems?"

He cracked a knowing smile. "She's not my girlfriend, if that's what you're thinking. She's a physics doc who works at the Corkscrew. She's half-Pakistani, and smart as a whip."

She stared at him, wide-eyed. "That sounds like my sister. How old is she?"

He shrugged. "Nika? About twenty-five, I guess."

She put a hand up to her face. "You know Nika? I can't believe I'm hearing this."

Stella, who had been fiddling with the milk jug and sugar bowl, leaned toward her and nudged her.

"Would you like another mug of tea?"

Her face reddened. "Oh no, that's all right." 

Stella poured more tea in her mug without listening to her reply and handed it to her. "I can make you a Welsh rarebit, if you'd like."

She shook her head. She took a few sips of tea and wondered what was coming next. In the middle of expounding the virtues of high taxes and socialist policies, Penny turned and glared at Stella.

"Stop flirting," she growled.

The sight of Dean's outdoor disguise made her laugh uncontrollably. After rummaging in a clothing chest, he had put on a bushy black beard and steel-rimmed glasses with bottle lenses. His green hair was completely hidden beneath a Rastafarian beanie.

"You're crazy!" she shrieked. "You look like you're goin' to a reggae an' ganja fest."

"Yeh mon," he replied, in character. "Me gwan wear dis slouchy an' cover up me dreadlocks. Bluud claat."

She dipped her head, almost doubled up with laughter. He smiled sheepishly.  "I know I look like a goog, but if we don't wear bloody disguises the purples'll spot us and then they'll have their way with us."

"Okay then, pass me my Selassie tam." Her breathing was ragged from laughing. 

"You don' need no rasta look, sista," he said. "I an' I don' wan look de same."

A few minutes later they set out from the house. Dean wore his outsize beanie and beard with Groucho glasses and she was dressed in a black beret, black sunglasses as big as welding goggles, and a gray trench coat.

Her face flushed, she slipped into the shiny, sapphire-blue Mercedes. Dean switched on the motor, and immediately Beethoven's Eroica filled the interior. He changed it to the Radetzy March, which he played at full volume. 

"Where are we goin'?" 

"To Tyrone's house. He's the revo barman who owns this car." He smiled. "His house is much grander than his car and his job at the pub."

"Tyrone must be like you--a master of disguises." She smiled back at him as they rolled away from the safe house.

With the Radetzy pounding in her ears, she watched street after street of ugly gray houses roll by. Dean drove at a controlled speed until the road they were whispering along broadened out into a vast cloverleaf of whizzing eight-lane traffic. She began feeling nauseous. As they slowed before crossing the cloverleaf, she saw sun-baked men and women in dirty clothes panhandling next to billboards proclaiming dream-fulfilling luxuries. The contrast between the dire poverty of the underclasses and the triumphant consumerism of the well-off couldn't have been starker. An old woman in a headscarf caught her eye, braving the buzzing traffic to set up a table at the roadside selling bunches of begonias.

They're prob'ly sellin' for ridic'lously low prices.

The blur of the traffic and the haze of sunlight on the windows were giving her a headache, to add to her queasiness. They approached an overcrowded intersection and the car slowed to a crawl. A large throng of people stood in the road, making it impossible to advance, and vehicles were sounding their horns. 

"Looks like a demo," He said. "I don't think we'll have to wait long. I can hear the robocops coming."

The mass of people barely moved, acting as if they intended to block the road. Up ahead, a marching squad of purple police robots was clomping toward the massed demonstrators who blocked the intersection. She watched, horrified, as the marching bots--after giving the standard order to disperse--callously grabbed demonstrators and slung them in all directions. People were wrenched off their feet and slammed by the huge fists of the massive bots. She saw one woman demonstrator hurled across the road like a human cannonball.

"Welcome to London, 2084," he said, "where people are treated like chaff."

Almost speechless with anger, she whispered: "Ain't there any way to stop it?" 

 He nodded. "There's gonna be a revolution. The people are reaching boiling point."

They drove on and were soon swishing along a winding road lined with exclusive houses. Trusting her intuition, she started to feel wary and apprehensive. They pulled into a long driveway, leading to a walled mansion. Dean stopped the car in front of a set of wrought-iron gates. He turned his head and let his ajna transmit numbers into a keypad. The gates swung open and they passed between rows of trees, before sliding to a halt in the courtyard of what looked like a gothic fortress. 

"This place looks scary." 

"I'm here to protect you, Sasha." He looked ridiculous in his slouchy beanie and bristling beard.

She followed him up a flight of stone steps to a locked front door. He opened it with a key and led her across a ceramic-tiled floor adorned with oriental silk carpets. They padded across a high-ceilinged room, where Chinese artifacts were displayed in glass cabinets, to a den with a huge blue screen, sound equipment, and a bar. 

Everythin' here looks too good to be true.

He motioned her to sit on a black leather sofa and headed upstairs. Watching him climb a carved wooden staircase to the bedrooms, she felt tingly inside. She had a pretty good idea what his motives were--her own she was not so sure about. She was starting to take a dislike to this huge empty house, when he came back down and beckoned her to follow him. She trudged up the stairs feeling like Belle in the castle of the Beast.

Looking inside each room she passed, she noticed every window opened onto a tiled balcony.  In one of the bathrooms she glimpsed a sunken tub set in black marble that had gold faucets. Gold chandeliers hung overhead and a canary chirped in a golden cage. She wondered about Tyrone and what kind of life he led. How did he get the money to buy all this?

Dean led her by the hand into a large bedroom and slid open a closet door. "Why don't you walk in and pick out a dress?" he said. "Anything you like."

She peeked inside. The closet was almost as big as the bedroom in her last foster home. Why does he think I like dresses?

She picked out a black silk evening gown and held it up to herself in front of the closet mirror. She heard him chuckle. He was stretched out on the king-sized bed watching her. 

"That's beautiful, Sasha. Very sexy. You should try it on."

He gestured for her to change into the gown. It felt strange and embarrassing, but she took off her coat, pulled the shirt over her head, and slithered into the elegant black silk. She began swishing around the bedroom, posing for him like a runway model.

He took off his beanie, bottle glasses, and beard. Picking up a jewelry box, he opened its lid. "Stop flouncing about like a diva and come over here. I've got something nice for you."

Rankled by his mocking tone, she spun around and glared. He was holding a diamond necklace out to her. She wanted to wear diamonds more than anything in the world.

Sitting on the bed beside him, she let him lay the necklace around her throat and fit the clasp. She began to feel like a queen adorned in her finery. Her only regret was that Nug wasn't the one giving her silks and diamonds and touching the stones on her throat.

"How about a kiss then?" 

She turned her face toward him and opened her lips. Outside the bedroom door she heard the chirping canary.

Now I know why I was feelin' nervous. I  musta known I was gonna make out with him on this great big bed.