This base is on fayaaa...

Spy took a long drag on his cigarette.

"So, Scout, let me get zis straight. You want to win ze lottery."

"Yeah!"

"And you want me to 'elp you."

"Like I said."

"Scout, 'ow ze 'ell would I do zat?"

"Listen, I got dis whole thing worked out. So, you infiltrate de lottery, right? An' den you disguise yourself as de lottery guy - "

"Ze lottery guy. I see. Any lottery guy in particular?"

"Oh, ya know, de lottery guy who does lottery stuff. So, disguised as the lottery guy, you run de show, following so far?"

"Just about."

An elephant casually passed through the rec room. An old lady seated on its back waved at Spy. Scout paused and stared.

"Uuhh... Why is...?" Spy sighed.

"It's just my aunt. Please, continue."

"Aaaanyway... So, like I said, you run de show, smile, talk a lot, all dat stuff. And den when it's time to draw de balls, you..." Scout's voice slipped in and out of focus. Spy sighed. He tried to catch his cigarette between two fingers, but noticed with irritation that it had disappeared. He reached inside his suit for his cigarette case and snapped it open, but now all it contained was a mirror. And his case had become plastic, Spy noticed. Typical. Now thoroughly annoyed, he stowed it in his suit again and turned back to face Scout. But Scout wasn't there. In his seat sat a puppy.

"Scout, much as I would like to not hear ze end of your plan, zis is not ze time to turn into a dog. Turn back, now." The puppy barked and ran off. Scout's mother entered the room. Spy smiled and rose to meet her.

"Salut, ma chérie. Ça va?" Scout's mother stared vaguely into the distance. Spy, worried, tried English.

"My dear? Chou-fleur? Do you need 'elp?" Chou-fleur was his pet name for Scout's mother. It actually meant "cauliflower", but she didn't know this. She heard a French word resembling fleur and thought that it was the height of romantic expression. Spy had initially used it as a sort of joke, but the name had stuck.

Scout's mother looked through him.

"Naw, I'm all right, thanks, I'm looking for someone."

"But I love you!"

"Really, I need to be somewhere, I have a meeting planned and dey're serving enchiladas. Bye, now." Scout's mother walked away. Spy stared after her, distraught. An urgent, vague feeling was squeezing his chest, squatting on his heart, he knew that there was something he needed to do, he knew it, but he couldn't work it out but it involved Scout's mother and she was leaving now and he couldn't stop her but she didn't want to see him and he couldn't follow and he wanted to reach her and... And now his phone was beeping. He took it out and flipped it open.

"Allô?"

"Allô? C'est Mlle. Pauling. Vous m'entendez?"

"Parfaitement. C'est quoi le problème? Et depuis quand vous parlez français, vous?"

"You need to get the briefcase!" Yelled the Administrator. "You need to get the briefcase! You need to get the briefcase!" Spy stood up, panicked. The briefcase! Where was the briefcase? It had to be around here somewhere... Suddenly the roof disappeared and an immense flamethrower descended from the sky. A giant BLU Pyro's face loomed above it, peering down at Spy, like a child with a magnifying glass setting ants on fire. Fear burst into Spy's system and he gulped.

"Oh, not again..." BLU Engineer watched from the giant Pyro's shoulder and laughed as Spy tried to run. Tried to. The Frenchman found that he couldn't. He just couldn't build up the momentum. He had to push his foot forwards with every step.

"You'll pay for zis, labourer!" Screeched Spy. "Mediiiiic!" And then he heard the dreaded crackling, that always meant that he had been discovered and was now going to die a very painful and embarrassing death, and would then have to wait for respawn and start all over again from scratch. His heart sank and he screwed his eyes shut, while his hand groped for the briefcase. The warmth increased, worked through his balaclava and burned his skin, and through his closed eyelids he could see the growing intensity of orange light, and he heard a hiss and then a roar as the fire rushed down on him...

Suddenly everything was dark. Something hard struck his chin. He lay disoriented for a moment, heart pumping like it was about to burst straight through his chest, before feeling around him and realising that he was lying on the floor beside his bed. His bedsheets were twisted tightly around him. Frantically he wriggled free, pushed himself up, tripped, got up again, staggered into a wall, scrabbled for a light, found one and switched it. The sight of his bedroom, familiar and ordinary, carefully organized to exude the most refined elegance a room could contain without bursting, had a soothing effect. He made his way to the personal bathroom adjacent to his room. It was the only bedroom to have this, for some reason. Incidentally, it was because of this feature that he had hurriedly claimed the room before anyone else wised up.

He ripped off his balaclava and took a long drink of cold water, splashing it on his face and rubbing it into his hair, which was plastered to his forhead. Just a dream, he repeated to himself as he splashed more water on the nape of his neck. A nightmare. But mon Dieu, what a nightmare. He made a mental note to ask exactly what had been in that "vaccine" Medic had injected him with.

And he really didn't need that right now. The daily number of fights had been doubled for unknown reasons. The effect was telling on both teams: they grew slower by the week, like clockwork toys slowly winding down. This was especially serious for himself, Spy reflected, as he needed his brains to do his job. Unlike most of the assorted idiots he was forced to work with.

Spy sifted through the scattered memories of his dream, growing increasingly horrified. Nonsensical, demented gibberish, the lot. He was almost ashamed of himelf. Still, the smell and sound of fire had been impressively realistic. He could almost smell and hear them now.

Spy paused.

He could smell and hear them now.

Very well in fact.

"Oh, putain..."

"Wake up, idiot!" Spy shook Demoman, who's room was the closest to his. The Scotsman mumbled something about eyes before his head lolled and he went back to sleep. Spy slapped him a couple of times, but the only result was a bubbling snore. Spy stepped back and karate chopped his gut (Demo's, not his own). No response.

Spy noticed an unopened bottle and an idea struck him. He picked it up, held it close to Demo's ear and popped the cork out. Demoman's eyes snapped open and he jumped up like a cat that's been sneezed at.

"Gimme that!"

"No! Listen to me! Zere is a fire in ze rec room and you need to wake Engineer up!"

"But the whiskey?"

"Forget ze whiskey!" Demoman stared at Spy as if the latter had just eaten his infant firstborn.

"Forget the whiskey?!" Spy gnashed his teeth.

"Fine, go wake up ze ozzers and I give you ze whiskey. Now go!" Demo stared warily at him.

"Promise you won't drink it yesself?"

"Yes! Go! Go!" Spurred by this promise, Demoman worked fast. Bodies tumbled out of doors, bumped into each other, cursed, milled around, yelled questions and insults and requests for someone to turn on the bloody light. Soldier had found a trumpet and was blowing a fanfare, for reasons best known to himself. Medic emerged from his lab in a dressing-gown, his hair all stuck to one side and glasses missing, and peered around him.

"Vat's going on?"

"Pyjama party!" Yelled Soldier, delighted.

"No, yer blockhead! Fire!" Shouted Sniper, who had been fetched from his van by Spy. At the other end of the corridor, Scout sniffed.

"Hey, why does it smell like... Like... Uh-oh."

"Where's Pyro? For God's sake don't let him come near here!"

"Can I have me whiskey now?" Asked Demo hopefully. Spy shoved the bottle in his face and moved away.

Engineer, who had grasped the problem quicker than most of his team, wrestled his way to the intercom and obtained silence. The nearest firestation was miles away: ringing them would be of little use. He then enquired as to the number of buckets in the base: exactly one, which was jealously guarded by Soldier, until he was finally persuaded that the bucket was old enough to have a chance to fly with its own wings and be a hero. Even with just the one bucket, it took a ridiculously long time to organize a bucket chain starting from the kitchen tap, which they did, because no one could think of a better solution. And even then, it was only marginally organized: the links in the chain spent a rather large amount of time chasing other links which had wandered off. Meanwhile, the fire steadily grew, eating up the rec room.

Medic, practically blind without his glasses, had to have his hands placed around the bucket by the people next to him, and kept stumbling out of the chain and having to be retrieved, only for him to repeat the performance. He fumbled and sometimes dropped the bucket. Never, and perhaps never again, had Medic been so bitterly cursed by his teammates.

Scout ran back and forth, carrying the empty bucket back to the beginning of the chain, gibbering all the while that it wasn't working and they should leave before they all burned together. Engineer did his best to keep the chain in order. Soldier, who thought that starting a fire in the rec room and then fighting it with his bucket was a terrific idea, and that he would congratulate the person who had thought of it at the first opportunity, shouted orders and spilled the water in his enthusiasm. Heavy had fetched some blankets and was using them to muffle entire sections of the fire, Spy slunk around directing operations while not actually working himself. Sniper left the chain and started to ferry jars from his van to supplement their meager store of recipients. As for Demoman, he was by that time drunk and flat-out refused to believe that there even was a fire, until Heavy grabbed him by the shoulders and forcefully directed his gaze at it. He was then overcome by feelings of righteous anger and solidarity, and while yelling encouragements to his team-mates emptied the contents of his bottle into the fire. The flames leapt higher and crackled happily. The team swiftly press-ganged him into the bucket chain before he could do any more harm.

It was dark, smoky, the heat grew gradually more oppressive despite their efforts. Their eyes stung, their throats burned, sweat poured down their faces, soot clung to their skin, the light of the fire played tricks on their vision. The silhouettes of their teammates, outlined in orange, seemed to flicker past like bats, and grew increasingly harder to distinguish from furniture. Medic could only see a haze of orange. The REDs could barely hear each other over their constant coughing and the roaring of the fire. They had to yell at the top of their voices.

"Vere are you? I can't see, dammit! Vere are you? "

"Here! No, not there, that's a hatstand!"

"It's not working! It's not fuckin' working!"

"Someone get more buckets!"

"Whaaaat?"

"I said we need more buckets!"

"I told you! We have no more buckets!"

"No more jars either!"

"Thank God."

"Oh, shuddup."

"Get pots then! Saucepans! Bowls! Spoons! Anything!"

"I have things!"

"Give 'em here! Not that, you blithering idiot, that's a sieve!"

"Engineer said anything, therefore I will get anything, and just you try and stop me, Baggins! Now! Where did that hatstand go?"

"Come back here, ya bloody moron! ...Gah!"

"Keep goin', lads! We'll give this fire a right kickin' in the bollocks before we're done!"

"Shut up and grab a pot!"

They battled all night. The sun was already up by the time Heavy finally stamped out the last flame.

Grey light poured in from the partially burnt-down wall. The team stood in the smoking remains of their rec room, panting, some of them still holding buckets or jars or various cooking ustensils. Soldier was resolutely clutching a hatstand and glaring at Sniper's exasperated face. Engineer found to his surprise that he was holding a sieve, which explained a lot.

The rec room was half-destroyed. Downy ash covered the floor. Charred, crumbly debris littered the room. Battered and half-burned boxes of Scrabble and Cluedo and chess stuck out of piles of rubble. Most of the furniture was partially blackened and some chairs were lying on their sides, as if a dragon had stuck its head through the door and sneezed. The REDs weren't looking much better: their faces and clothes were smeared with soot and their hair – for those who had any – was greasy and stuck out in random directions. They looked like they had been playing several games of pass-the-parcel with all the parcels replaced with bombs. Scout stared at the wall, his cheek twitching spasmodically. Medic gingerly held up a limp fold of his ruined bathrobe. Spy stared down at his suit in despair.

Medic breathed out slowly, and turned to face what he assumed to be his team-mates, but was actually a sofa.

"Vell. I'm now going to get my glasses, if someone could assist me," he told the sofa, his back firmly turned on his team, "and zen if no one else is, I'm going to showver - " Spy checked his watch, and his blood ran cold.

"No time," he grunted. "Ze battle is in ten minutes."

It was a limp, weary team that gathered in the respawn room that morning. They had hastily pulled on their uniforms, yawning and rubbing their eyes, without having had the time to wash at all. They could still feel the soot and sweat under their clothes. Their eyeballs felt raw, their throats were dry, their heads drooped, their arms dragged like lead, their weapons weighed down on them. Their eyelids dropped the second they stopped paying attention. The only exception was Soldier, who was not going to let a little thing like imminent physical collapse get in his way. In-between drills that no one listened to, he was thoughtfully assessing his hatstand's viability as a weapon.

Engineer was sitting against the wall, half-dozing. Scout was pouring Bonk! down his throat non-stop, but under the sugar-rush he still felt the tiredness. The combination made him cranky and jittery, glaring at everything and everyone with watery red eyes and complaining shrilly that Engineer's hardhat was off-centre. Heavy stared dully at the wall, nodding, Sascha hanging from his arms. Medic, his hair limp and dirty, desperately tried to stay awake by cleaning his glasses, realising too late that he was actually smearing soot on them. At the back, Sniper steadily chugged down mug after mug of coffee. Demoman snored on the floor, happily oblivious to the fact that Scout had decided to repurpose his back as the foundations of a card-castle. Spy massaged his eyes and tried to work out a plan, but his brain felt like the wheels of a tractor stuck in mud: laboriously churning, churning, and getting nowhere. He gave up and started eyeing Sniper's coffee, fingers twitching. Except for Demoman and Soldier, they were all thinking the same thing: wondering how on Earth they would have the energy to run around dodging bullets and rockets when they barely felt up to crawling into bed.

Soldier sneaked up close to Sniper and screeched in his ear.

"GET UP, you spineless bunch of molluscs! The battlefield is waiting!" Sniper blasted out of his seat like a jack-in-the-box, spraying coffee and swearwords. When he realised what had happened he threw Soldier a filthy look and hurried off to get some more coffee before the battle. Medic made a desperate attempt to stand straight.

"Mission begins in two minutes," announced the Administrator crisply. Demoman was listlessly kicked awake, much to Scout's dismay.

"Hey, mind de castle! Mind de – ugh, never mind."

"Where's Pyro?" Mumbled Engineer, rubbing his cheek.

"I didn't see 'im."

"Me neither."

"I saw him!" Barked Soldier. "When we arrived to do battle with the fire with my bucket! I saw him running away from us!"

Engineer stiffened. Spy frowned as he tried to think straight.

"Zen zat means..."

"Vy didn't you say zis before?"

"He told me he just needed a pee and that he'd be right back! And he told me not to tell you that he had gone, or to tell you that he had told me not to tell you what I just told you because – oh." Soldier frowned beneath his helmet, trying to work out what he had just said. The implication of what he had just revealed slowly worked its way through his teammates' brains.

Just as this moment Pyro slunk fearfully into the room, keeping to the wall. All eyes turned to him, and an icy silence greeted his arrival.

Engineer grinned widely, exposing all his teeth.

"Why, hello there. Tell me - what were you doing when the fire started?" Pyro shook his head and held his hands up innocently, mumbling something, while simultaneously trying to hide his flamethrower behind his back.

There was a long pause, and he started to quake under the concentrated beams of animosity the other REDs were sending him. Engineer spoke again.

"You didn't... start it, didja?"

"Nononono," giggled Pyro, still trembling like jelly in an earthquake.

The team stared at him. The thought that the cause of their tiredness was right in front of them, and that its face would soon be available for use as an anti-bullet protection, part-time punchbag, spare hammer and whatever other use they could dream up for it, cheered them all up greatly. The weariness vanished from their limbs, they felt fresh and ready for a little therapeutical violence.

"Mission begins in ten seconds."

Heavy hefted his minigun, grinning. Scout jiggled his bat in his hand and bent his knees, ready to streak off like a greyhound released from its leash the second the door opened. Sniper pushed his glasses up his nose and leaned sideways, lifting his rifle. Soldier lifted his rocket launcher to its familiar place on his shoulder, while Demoman loaded his grenade launcher with practised ease, snapped it shut, and pointed it at the door, leering. Spy brushed his suit and flicked his cigarette case open, his smug look firmly back in place. Beside him, Engineer rolled his sleeves up and thumped his wrench into his palm, hardhat low over his eyes, grinning as he contemplated the fight ahead. Medic took his place behind Heavy and stamped his heels smartly. Soon the red swirl from his medigun was enveloping each team-mate in turn. With one exception.

"Start fighting now!"

The distant battle cries of the BLUs could be heard, followed by explosions and the rattle of guns.

As one, the RED team turned to look at the trembling pyromaniac.

"Pyro. Why don't you go first?"