‘Eight levels of safeguard insulation,’ said Toshiko. ‘Ward screens. Focus blockers. Chastity belt.’
‘Good,’ said James. ‘I don’t want another mind-screw like that.’
‘Yeah, me neither,’ said Toshiko. ‘I’m still not thinking straight. I’ve got what my father used to call “hand- me-down head”. Nasty. Befuddled. How are you?’
‘Fine,’ James said.
‘How’re the ribs?’
‘Fine. No heavy lifting, Owen said.’
‘What?’ Toshiko asked, glancing at Gwen. Gwen had involuntarily sniggered.
‘Nothing.’
‘What?’ Toshiko asked again, eyeing Gwen inquisitively.
Gwen shook her head. A memory, unbidden. James hoisting her up against his fridge-freezer in the small hours of Friday morning. Carrying her weight, lost in passion.
‘Nothing. Well, that thing was a real twenty-seven, wasn’t it?’ Gwen said.
‘Twenty-seven,’ said James.
‘Absolutely,’ said Toshiko. She made to replace her eye-guards. ‘Thanks for Saturday, by the way. I haven’t laughed so much in ages. The Andy stuff was priceless.’
‘My pleasure,’ said James. He and Gwen walked away, leaving Toshiko to her work.
‘You’re never heavy lifting,’ James whispered to her.
‘Stop it!’
‘You left this at my place,’ he added, handing over her MP3 player.
‘Oh, sorry. Thanks.’
‘New listings,’ he said as he walked away.
Gwen put her right earpiece in, and selected menu. Music began. He’d loaded ‘Coming Up For Air’ and eight other tracks by Torn Curtain, his favourite band. ‘Coming Up For Air’ had been playing during the fridge-freezer moment.
‘Heads up.’
Jack appeared on the walkway above the work areas. ‘Morning, all. I trust you’ve had your coffee. Busy week. James, can you get onto your source in the Land Registry and background check that commune in Rhondda? It could be nothing, but I’ve got an itch says it’s a cult, and that web page you found doesn’t fill me with confidence that it’s entirely, you know, terrestrial?’
‘On it,’ James said.
‘Good. Owen?’
Owen swung around on his chair. ‘Still nothing on the missing pets in Cathays. I’m cross-referencing a police report of small bones found in a skip behind a youth club. Weevil-watch is clean for the last week. Oh, and the flying saucer seen over Barry turned out to be an escaped windsock. I’m also keeping tabs on that man in Fairwater who rang the Samaritans and told them a Baycar bus had eaten his wife. I think it’s a Care in the Community issue, but you never know.’
‘You never do,’ Jack agreed. ‘And the Mr and Mrs Peeters thing?’
‘I’m still watching that one,’ Owen said. ‘You’ll know as soon as I do.’
‘If they start hatching, I’ll want to know
‘Still busy analysing the Amok,’ Toshiko replied.
‘Yeah, well, skip that for now. I’ve sent a file to your station. Check it out. Either I’m wrong — and please God, I am — or an auto mechanic in Grangetown is blogging on how to make a portable meson gun. In Sumarian.’
‘I’ll look into that.’
‘Would you?’ Jack looked around. ‘Gwen?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Got a minute?’
Gwen walked into his office. Jack had newspapers spread out on his desk.
‘Did we make the front page, then?’ she asked.
Jack shook his head. ‘Best we got was two inches on page eighteen.’
‘So, that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. It’s good. Everybody caught up in The Amok Incident was too damaged to remember anything coherent.’
‘Well, that’s kind of good.’
‘Best we could hope for.’
Gwen waited. Then she said, ‘I think I’d better apologise.’
‘Really?’
‘I was harsh, on Thursday. Really very harsh. I’m sorry.’
Jack sat back and sighed. ‘No, you’re all right. I should apologise. I was out of line. I didn’t realise how … how insidious the Amok was. I think it affected me more than I knew. Made me act-’
‘It’s OK.’
‘It’s not OK. It deserves an apology,’ Jack said.
‘Accepted.’
Jack nodded. ‘We friends again, Gwen Cooper?’
‘Always were.’
He nodded again. ‘You have a good weekend?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Hang out with the others?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. There was no point lying.
Jack stood up. ‘
‘Yeah, it was.’ How did he know?
‘I know everything, Gwen,’ Jack said. ‘Maybe I could borrow the disks sometime. I do like Andy. Smart-funny, like
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Well, let’s get to work,’ Jack said.
‘The Amok,’ Gwen said. ‘Do you know what it was?’
‘That? Oh, yeah,’ Jack replied.
He flipped over one of the newspapers on his desk and tapped a finger on the back-page word search.
‘A puzzle?’ James said.
‘Yeah.’
‘We were nearly killed by a word search?’
Jack nodded. ‘Kinda.’
‘People died because of a word search?’ Toshiko asked.
‘OK,’ Jack said, ‘hurry up and get over that part. I was making an analogy. A Jamesian analogy. The Amok is a puzzle, a mental exercise. Like a crossword or — yes — a word search. Trouble is, it was built by and for a species who exist in more dimensions than we do. Their idea of a simple puzzle invaded our minds in ways we couldn’t cope with. We weren’t made for logic challenges on that scale. We are simple, sturdy, four-dimensional beings. An eleven-dimensional sudoku is going to be a bit of a head-melt to the likes of us. Addictive, inviting, perplexing, infuriating, involving… but beyond our feeble means to solve.’
‘You’re saying I was mullahed by a sudoku?’ Owen asked, joining them.
‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘What news?’
‘This just in. The Peeters are hatching,’ Owen said.
‘Damn! Fighter Command!’ said James.
‘Exactly. Let’s roll,’ said Jack.
