The empty magazine clattered loudly as it bounced against the Super Hornet's fuselage and then down to the hanger floor, a fresh one slammed into place with a dull click and the flawless technique of the programmed rather than the learned. Muzzle still outstretched towards the far wall the weapon completed an arc from left to right and back again as its owner considered his next move.

The Terminator known to his enemies as Cromartie dropped the considerable height from the cockpit to the hanger floor, with only the slightest bending of his knees to absorb the considerable weight. His gaze moved over to the immobile Cameron still pressed into the depression formed in the wall by the violent impact of her exoskeleton - although machines were incapable of surprise, he had expected considerably more resistance from the prototype T-2000. Perhaps her Chip was damaged.

It simply made achieving his objective that much easier.

"Sarah Connor," He called out again, although the automated killer did not expect the mother of the reason for his mission to be to finally cooperate. His monotone was without any inflection - he did not even have the decency to sound boastful, or arrogant or pleased at his ruse; simply carrying out his core function and even completing it would not bring him the knowledge of a job well done.

Aware that while security on the facility was lax - the entire reason it had been selected by the T-888 - the longer spent in the hanger increased the odds of their discovery, and that was an unacceptable use of resources. Calculating the likely weak points of the storage containers arranged in front of the support pillar ahead, his hand traced an invisible pattern in the air; each pause punctuated by the squeezing of the trigger and the bang of a round exiting the chamber.

Sarah threw her hands over her head as she felt the concussive wave of deafening sound roll over her, from multiple bullets whizzing through the wood and canvas of the crates behind and burying themselves in the concrete wall in front. She shook her head vigorously but could not shake the tinnitus that made it impossible to hear anything but the incessant, ringing of her abused eardrums.

Fumbling with the pistol in her hands Sarah was powerless to do anything but watch an immaculately polished shoe connect with the gun, sending it spiralling into the air and out of the fight. She glanced upwards in time to watch a thick arm and feel a powerful grip close around her throat, hauling the woman without the slightest pause up to standing and then off her feet entirely.

Cromartie ignored the stiff kicks delivered to his abdomen and thighs, courtesy of the heavy combat boots on the end of the struggling legs dangling in front of him, that would otherwise bring a normal man to his knees struggling to breathe. "You are a difficult family to locate. I spent many months tracking you without success."

Spurred on by the adrenaline being pumped into her blood as quickly as the pancreas in her body could produce it, somewhat making up for the struggle to fill her lungs, Sarah summed up the energy to swing her fist with as much power and force as her shoulder and arm could combine to provide. In an irresistible arc her pointed knuckles drove themselves into Cromartie's temple and forced his head to twist in the opposite direction, as the action provided an equal and opposite reaction.

The flesh underneath the knuckles quickly turned an angry red as a series of three triangular-shaped imprints began to rise, on their way to forming welts upon the side of the Terminator's head. The arm that held the fingers that in turn held Sarah by the throat in a vice-like grip remained unaffected, as Cromartie slowly turned his features back to stare at the woman now feeling the drain of hypoxia.

"I realised that I needed to change my tactics," He continued as if the devastating blow had been a pinprick on the finger. "I know that you will do everything you are capable of doing to protect John - I know that as long as you are with him it will be far more difficult to terminate him."

Sarah could feel the edges of her vision beginning to lose their focus and darken. Already the tips of her toes - heavy in the mud-slick boots that seemed to weigh far more when they did not bear her weight - had become numb and the paralysis was beginning to rise upwards towards her knees.

"You're wasting your time," Sarah whispered harshly. "I'll die before I help you."

Cromartie took a step forward and drove Sarah's back against the hangar's concrete wall - forcing what little oxygen remained in her lungs out, striking the back of her skull so that her head lolled forwards. "I have no intention of terminating you," Her tormentor replied flatly. "I understand that you will not assist me freely …"

Sarah was dimly aware of the Terminator's grasp tightening, until she felt sure his fingers must be meeting. Her fingertips began to tingle and fade from her control as her stubborn, tenacious refusal to accept that which fate seemed to routinely plan for her, could no longer overcome the simple laws of biology that governed all creatures, save the machine which drained the life from her as easily as she might normally breathe.

"You are difficult to control," Cromartie said matter-of-factly as he watched the flesh of the woman pale to alabaster. "You will be easier to transport unconscious."

Fingertips, elbows, shoulders and now her lips tingled and passed into the numbing embrace of hypoxia, as her eyelids grew heavy. Her conscious mind now unable to function, the primitive centres of the brain could not grasp the hopelessness of the situation, re-routing what few atoms of oxygen remained in her darkening blood to the simple act of remaining alive.

Unable to focus even on the face of the Terminator a few inches away who patiently waited for her to fall into the darkness of unconsciousness, Sarah summed up the last of her reserves and offered them as a silent prayer for her son - hoping that somehow Derek would be able to keep him safe, that somehow he would go on and be the man that the world needed so badly that hundreds, perhaps thousands, had died in the past to protect his future.

The older woman briefly felt the most absurd regret that for all the effort and study she had made Cameron would not be given the chance to please the kindly old Charles Reizeger, and fulfil her equally absurd desire for dance. Sarah supposed that with the hindsight of the fingers choking the life from her body, that ultimately the girl had not played the part of betrayer.

Ultimately for all the confusion, mistrust and lies Cameron had been involved in, Sarah's end - she supposed whatever Cromartie had in store for her after she awoke would be the second-best option to death - had come at the hands of a "Bad Guy". No surprises, no twists or Trojan Horse; unlike the killer-turned protector T-101, or Cameron, Cromartie had been designed from blueprint to hardened hanger to destroy the future of mankind in the past and he had never faltered, wavered or been reprogrammed from that task.

Her eyes closed for a final time. She had nothing more left to give.

Sarah did not feel Cromartie's grip break but she did feel the impact of her shins against the steel floor, as her body dropped abruptly. Her lungs did not care for the circumstances that had cleared her throat and immediately took their fill of all the oxygen they could absorb - red blood cells rushed through swollen arteries and infused a slowing heart with the strength to find its rhythm once more, the chain reaction of life started anew - her breathing coming in ragged panting as she found the energy to roll on to her back and ease the weight on her chest.

Cromartie had been so focused on judging the correct pressure to apply to crush the windpipe so as to permanently reduce its capacity, while avoiding death, that he had only felt and not seen the nose-cone of the F-18 Super Hornet behind as it crashed into his chest. The tremendous force of the impact throwing the T-888 from his otherwise stable feet, to land on the steel ten feet away.

Despite the terrific blow his systems were already calculating damage potential and re-routing failed circuit pathways, even during his brief flight through the air, so that as he landed with a hard thud there was barely a pause before Cromartie was already climbing upright to stand. Matching the gaze of the attacker with his own Sarah's tormentor cocked his head to the side. "This is not your primary function - Your primary function is the protection of John Connor. The logical course of action if you were able to come back on-line would be to alert him to my attack."

Cameron's HUD was a mish-mash of grainy images of the Terminator stood opposite, over which a seemingly endless number of circuits were superimposed and drawn in red highlighting a failure to reroute, or a component that was no longer functioning. While she could see Cromartie's lips moving, her auditory processors relayed his words in a buzzing whine which made them impossible to understand. She took a staggering, unsteady step forward with each leg moving awkwardly as if they could hardly bend at the knee.

Cromartie mirrored the move and stepped forwards, his features showing none of the facial tics and involuntary movements seen in Cameron's. "Is your Chip damaged?"

Feeling the burning pain of her bruised throat and judging it to be a sign her body had finished focusing on the act of breathing, Sarah sat up gingerly - wincing at the aches and stinging pains of her limbs and chest but keeping her clearing vision on the two Terminators stood opposite. Never the most intimidating models it did not take a robotics expert - simply a survivor of an encounter - to observe that even under the best conditions the lithe model on the left lost precious weight and size advantaged to the T-888.

Considering the difficulty Sarah's "daughter" had in walking it did not seem much of a fight at all.

Managing to rise to all fours Sarah crawled the short distance to where the pistol she had wielded so uselessly earlier had landed. Pausing only long enough to check the magazine's fitting and the safety, the raven-haired woman swung her arms around and with an aim as much instinct as conscious effort, squeezed the trigger as many times as the gun would allow in return for a bullet.

Cromartie staggered back slightly as if a bucket of water had been thrown over him and not a hail of bullets. His flesh was nicked, torn and bled to reveal the slightest slithers of silver which marked his true nature - emotionless eyes instantly narrowing on Sarah and the source of the attack.

Without hesitation and taking full advantage of the diversion Cameron closed the distance between the two Terminators and delivered the irresistible sole of her boot to the exposed throat of Cromartie, so that the larger model's wounded head snapped backwards. Waiting only so long as it took her kicking leg to return to the floor, Cameron presented her side to her opponent and leaping backwards delivered a spinning kick, to drive the heel of her other leg into the chest of the T-88 and send him crashing to the ground.

Stepping back only beyond the distance Cromartie might be able to strike as he struck the floor, Cameron moved to deliver another powerful kick but instead dropped to one knee - the entirety of the vision her HUD afforded degenerating into a mess of white noise and scrolling gibberish. Circuit diagrams that had previously flashed a functioning green failed, or were simply overloaded by the strain of combat functions and turned to angry red.

Sarah gritted her teeth as she watched the compact Terminator fail to follow up her devastating opening salvo and felt her fists bunch as Cromartie climbed back to his feet - looming over Cameron who did not seem to see the bulky model even though her eyes stared directly at the T-888. Afforded a clear shot, she duly took aim and squeezed the trigger three times - only the first and second resulting in a firing as the third resolved in the dull click of a spent magazine.

Cromartie took no notice of the impacts just beneath his left eye and cheek, instead taking hold of Cameron by the collar of her jacket and without any real effort beginning to rotate his arm and then his waist in a powerful circle, more suitable to an Olympic discus-thrower than a fist fighter. Offering no meaningful resistance, Cameron was spun a half-dozen times before Cromartie released his grip and sent the smaller model into the wall opposite with the sickening crack of concrete.

Sarah watched Cameron impact the wall chest-first, upside down so that when gravity pulled the girl down to the floor she landed upon her back - legs extended and bent at the waist, as if a doll positioned to take a seat. Her eyes were drawn to a chunk of concrete which had been hurled clear of the impact and skittered across the steel floor to rest against her leg. Picking the small fragment up in her spare hand, she felt it crumble into dust inside her fist.

Dropping the empty magazine to the ground and Pulling a fresh one from a back pocket Sarah weighed up her rapidly diminishing options. There was only one exit outside, which lay on the other side of the hangar between herself and Cromartie. The larger Terminator's gaze was fixed on Cameron as if she might miraculously resurrect, from the underneath the debris of the second hole she had involuntarily created.

As her previous efforts had shown she did not have the fire-power to put the T-888 down, or even to take him out for long enough to affect an escape. Despite the singular assessment Sarah found she could not take her eyes away from the broken doll which stared back with utterly lifeless eyes in Cromartie's shadow. Having helped Derek carry the small Terminator's Chip-less body during an earlier misadventure, with a traffic management programme, she knew she did not have the strength even when fully fit to carry Cameron.

An important, but supporting problem for Sarah to deal with was that the adrenaline flowing through her veins would not last forever and when it broke down she would be at the mercy of her injuries and her capacity to move - let alone fight - would be gone. Time was working against her on more than one front.

Time ran out for Sarah as Cromartie, satisfied with his macabre work, turned towards the older woman and began to make his way ever closer. All thoughts of escape gave way to a mixture of bubbling fury and genuine fear as she gripped the pistol tightly and noted the five rounds remaining with one in grim reserve - she would not allow him to take her; she would not allow herself to endanger John.

She would die before she directly or indirectly harmed her son - by her own hand if necessary. Skynet would never get the satisfaction it was incapable of understanding.

Each of the five bullets found devastating impacts that would have killed a normal man where he stood by themselves, but barely slowed the T-888 and its advance. Easily tearing through the flesh but finding no way through the exotic metal which did not even dent under the ballistic pounding. As the distance between the pair shrank to a few mere metres and struggling to hear anything beyond the sound of her own heart hammering in her chest, Sarah brought her pistol muzzle up to press into the side of her temple.

This action brought Cromartie to a halt, his head cocked to the side as if analysing an unexpected event in his meticulously planned scheme. "You cannot self-terminate."

"You cannot self-terminate," Sarah spat with venom in her voice. "That's another one of the freedoms we enjoy that your kind will never understand. We are the ultimate masters of our own existence, our own lives and you can't ever take it away from us. I told you I would never betray John …"

She curled her finger behind the trigger guard and pressed against it ever so slightly. "Let's see how much help I'll give you with a bullet in my head."

Cromartie took a step forward an arm outstretched as if to intervene but grasped at nothing but the flooring, as his legs were swept out from underneath him at the hands of a long piece of steel trussing, which swung across the floor. Sarah winced as the force of the impact so nearby, almost causing her hand to squeeze around the trigger in reflex. She scrambled backwards and with the help of the wall, up to standing.

Pressing the heel of her boot down against the T-888's neck and standing upon his back like a hunter claiming her triumphant prize, Cameron brought the steel truss held in her hands down across Cromartie's back three times in quick succession. Her hand dropped the impromptu weapon in spasm and curled uselessly against her side.

"Run," Cameron urged in a harsh whisper which was as loudly as her systems could provide. Sarah threw the spent pistol to the floor and shook her head as if to argue, but the compact Terminator was in no mood to brook any argument. "I can't hold him for long …"

Piercing blue eyes fixed on their opposite number and the slightest smile painted a face beset with tics and spasm. "John needs to know you are safe … I need to know you are safe. He cannot function without you Sarah."

The whine of actuators struggling to keep the heavier T-888 beneath Cameron's feet rose so loudly, even Sarah's still-ringing ears could pick up the buzzing. The older woman felt frozen as if after all this, with escape a short dash and the simple act of opening a door, she could not snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It seemed so simple, so logical - leave the Terminator to fight the Terminator and she could slip away into the night with the knowledge Cromartie did not know where to find them.

For possibly the first time Sarah could hear pleading in Cameron's voice as sure as if her own son, or Derek spoke to her now. An urging that was as matched in the eyes, the windows to the soul, as it sounded from the Terminator's mouth.

"Thank you …" Sarah said finally without the slightest hint of sarcasm or mocking that had tinged the last time she had spoken the words. Beginning to step away, she resisted the urge to stop and stare at the dazzling smile which graced Cameron's face - lips spread to match shimmering eyes, that did not break their stare on Sarah even as the older woman circled around the Super Hornet and pulled the door to the rainy night open.

Sarah opened her mouth to say something - anything - but found no words on the tip of her tongue, or any further back. With a final great lungful of air she turned and fled into the storm, pausing only long enough to kick the door closed.

She convinced herself that the faint thud of a heavy frame being flung against an immovable object behind her, was the distant clap of thunder even though no lightning preceded it or followed it. Nothing more than the sound of the rain came from the black sky above.

…

…

Despite his wiry frame - exacerbated by the steel-rimmed spectacles which sat on the very edge of a very pointed nose - the lanky man showed no sign of backing down and highlighted his position with a wag of a long finger in Derek's direction.

"I thought I'd made my position very clear Corporal," He rebuked while putting just enough intonation on the rank to suggest his hurt at being dealt with by such a low-ranking dogsbody. "I've spent months building the medical facilities here and stockpiling the drugs that make this the only reliable pharmacy for eight hundred miles outside Serrano Point. There's equipment here that simply can't be moved in the time you've left me and I won't abandon it - you're supposed to fight Skynet, so why don't you get on with the killing while I get on with the healing?"

Derek resisted the urge to pull his hand across his face in exasperation. The journey - or battle - to reach Serenity Point had been long, muddy, dangerous and tragic all for in name of reaching the vital facility in time so that it could be evacuated,before the inevitable bloodbath that would announce the arrival of the machines. The young man had not conceived that having finally reached this bastion of Free Humanity, they would face a mammoth task in simply persuading people to leave.

"Skynet knows about Serenity Point," Reese tried with a new tact. "Even if we had the whole of the Fighting New Mexico 24th we couldn't hold this ground and we don't - you don't. All you have is a corporal, and a captain and a dozen pulse rifles barely fired, almost new in the armoury. Nobody's saying that losing this bunker isn't a hard blow to the gut to take Doctor Stipe, but as long as you and your staff survive there will be a chance to rebuild."

Stipe snatched a bar of green antibacterial soup from the sink's side and began to lather his hands. "This isn't up for discussion - the decision has already been made. I was a serving Medical Officer with the United States Army and as far as I'm concerned my commission is still valid - or do you only play soldier when it suits you?"

Derek felt his teeth grind together as his temper threatened to boil over. Clicking his heels together and offering a salute the young man turned on his heels and swept through the crumbling doorway.

"Very good sir."

…

…

Razak flung his underwear over a white barrier which screened a small corner of the examination room, his tuneless whistling rising above the whine of the circulation fans in the ceiling. The Captain stepped out from behind the divider and roughly kicked the pile of armour plates and sundry clothing he had spread about the floor up against the nearest wall, making no attempt to cover up his modesty.

Scratching at the stubble shadowing his chin the veteran's lips broke into a bright grin. "Does this come with a sponge bath, Nurse?"

The woman who turned towards him was slight; almost a foot shorter than Razak with shoulder-length dark brown hair which fell about the pale skin not hidden by her locks, or the pale blue scrubs which did their best to hide her figure but only half-succeeded. Bright blue eyes rolled good-naturedly as she snatched up a clipboard.

"I'm not actually a nurse sir," She replied with a gesture towards the scales. "I'd only just begun my training when J-Day hit us. Never got my piece of paper."

Razak shifted onto the scales and scratched his head. "Sir huh? - was your training with the forces?"

"United States Coast Guard brat," The young girl replied as she adjusted the counter and scribbled the reading down onto paper. Indicating the captain should have a seat, she unfolded the Stethoscope around her neck and warmed the bell with her breath. "I made my way from San Diego not long afterwards and somehow ended up here - been assisting Doctor Stipe and teaching myself what I can ever since."

"A piece of paper," Razak scoffed. "That's all it is - back when people needed proof you had the skills. Look around - those days are gone forever. We create jobs for people now, people don't apply for them. That's how it is, if you've not only survived but helped others survived you've more than earned that title, Nurse."

Razak placed his hands behind his head and reclined slightly as his heart rate was monitored. "So how about that sponge bath? Maybe I should stay overnight for observation …"

"It seems you're not only in love with yourself but also suffering from delusions of self-importance. I can prescribe a dose of reality for the latter, but I'm afraid the former is terminal. There's nothing I can do sir."

"Isn't there anything my guardian angel can do?" Razak gasped in mock-despair. "Won't you make my last night on what's left of the Earth a special one?"

Herding the "devastated" officer back towards the screen and pushing his clothing and armour alongside, the young woman offered a fleeting smile and the slightest shrug of her slight shoulders. "I'm afraid as a rule, I don't date men more than twice my age …"

The captain's bellowing laughter once again drowned out the extractors above, as he placed a hand on his heart and did his very best to appear solemn. "I think I've just flatlined."

The Nurse scooped up the heavy chest piece and passed it behind the screen. "We ask that all our corpses dress themselves for burial - Undertaking services are strictly limited to four-star officers or above."

"Before you throw me into the furnace," He replied whilst tugging his underpants up. "What's your name?"

"Allison Young," The girl added with a smile.

…

…

Razak's good mood lasted only as long as it took Derek Reese to negotiate the white concrete corridors of the complex and interrupt the captain, as he was about to enjoy his first real meal - as real as any freshly mixed protein mush could be instead of freeze-dried - in months.

The veteran eyed the youngster dangerously, oblivious to the mush dripping back down to his plate. "What do you mean he ordered us to stay?"

Derek suddenly felt his pre-rehearsed explanations evaporate under the burning stare that threatened to melt the flesh from his features. "He reminded me that as a ranking Major he would hold the final decision on the bunker. He wasn't for turning, sir--"

"You don't get it rookie!" Razak hissed as he threw his plate from the table and watched it spill his meal across the flooring but remain in one piece - the benefit of battlefield-certified dining. Taking a hold of Reese by the back of the neck, the captain forced the corporal's head downwards until the pair were mere inches apart at the nose.

"He might be a brilliant surgeon but he's also aware of how just how brilliant he is. Stipe has spent so long here, listening to the praise heaped on his work and having virtual control of the entire facility, that he's forgotten the good men and women who died and are continuing to die to make sure Serenity Point isn't slagged to molten concrete and steel. He's forgotten what it's like when you're not at the top of the pecking order - do you know where he spent his entire time on "active" duty before J-Day?

"The USS Pearl Harbour," Razak replied without giving Reese a chance to. "Fleet support ship - talk about being in the thick of the rear of the thick of the action. The man's gone too long without a reality check and you're going to give him one. You're going to convince the good Doctor that we're abandoning Serenity Point …"

Using his thumb as a pointer he circled around the people at the tables surrounding. "If you don't convince him every one of these people are probably going to die and being the good men and women I referred to earlier, namely I'm the man and you're the woman, we'll die defending them against overwhelming odds.

"I love the Free Earth Forces," Razak assured with a small smirk, "But I've checked out death before and it's never appealed to me. Besides there's a very beautiful young lady by the name of Allison Young who you won't be able to meet if you die. She has some pie-in-the-sky policy of not dating men old enough to be her father but you might just qualify …"

Licking at the protein mush still covering his fingers the captain nodded towards the door. "On the bounce, corporal."

…

…

John's lips widened in a yawn, as he pulled the cushion underneath his head further up and listened to Derek's erratic snoring and the crackle of the backyard fire compete with each other, to provide a soundtrack to the starry night above - A million shining points of light which were already millions of years out of date when watched from the Earth. They surrounded everything.

Swirling the last of the warm beer in the brown glass bottle in his hand, John absent-mindedly drained it and suppressed the urge to wince at the bitterness. A series of coughs and a shift in his position saw Derek sit up with a sigh and rub his eyes wearily, snatching up his own half-finished bottle and swigging from the neck. "How long was I out?"

John shrugged. "Maybe twenty minutes - no sign of Skynet yet."

Derek scowled and opened his mouth to chastise the boy before thinking better of it. Better to let him blow of steam with backyard beer and sarcasm than see it bottled up within to explode. John Connor might one day become the greatest hero of the Human Race in its long and often violent, sometimes heartening history, but he was still a boy.

Worse - he was a teenager. A teenager with all the problems of a boy growing to manhood, saddled with an exhausting knowledge of what his future held.

"I suppose there won't be much of this," John said after a long pause with only the fire adding its voice. "Lying around I mean - just relaxing. Can't imagine it's very easy to take a break after the end of the world."

Derek fished another bottle out from the cooler filled with lukewarm water. "We don't get four weeks paid vacation if that's what you're asking. Hard to find R&R when your enemy never sleeps, never rests and never stops …"

"We try to relax when we can," He added quickly before his attempt to calm John's fears merely increased them. "Even if it's only playing cards, or sharing a meal together. Even in a fight for our survival we find the time to try to forget about the war - It's just another way of making sure we don't lose sight of what this is all about - Us versus Them. Man against Machine."

John sat up, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "Sometimes it just doesn't seem that black and white, I mean we probably wouldn't even be here discussing this if it wasn't for Cameron - for a machine. From what I've been told we use their technology - even Terminators - whenever we can. Hell - it was me who reprogrammed Cameron, apparently …"

Derek's eyes narrowed and his jaw set. "Don't ever forget what they are John - don't ever forget. They're programmed; they don't ever believe in what they're doing, they only do what they've been set to believe. The fact they can switch sides from Skynet to us so easily and sometimes back again is all the evidence you need.

"Cameron's turned on you once and she can do it again. All of this; Cameron being sent back, me being sent back, time travel, your mom's experiences - the original T-101 that first tried to kill her then tried to save her and you - is about winning the war. A war against machines, against Skynet and a war for the survival of the Human Race. Use them if there's no other way to do it with a flesh and blood person but never, ever trust one over a person."

John nodded, but did not seem convinced by the argument. The naivety Derek could see in his eyes was a product of youth, and a future not yet played out but already written. The loud screech of a car's tyres pulled two sets of eyes towards the fence, between the driveway and the yard - the glare of headlights forcing two pairs of eyes to squint.

Derek pulled John to his feet with an outstretched hand. "Let's go see what we've got."

…

…

"Fuck off!" A slurred voice roared as it found no way past the chained mesh gate, which blocked any further progress through the narrow alley guarded by two decrepit, crumbling three-storey buildings between which rotting cables and fouled wiring hung in bunches. Rain fell not just from the sky, but also in torrents from broken guttering and across and down from the cabling strung across and above the alley.

Gripping the rusting mesh with fingerless gloves, revealing dirty nails the angry man pulled and pushed for several moments before his riddled brain came to understand it would not break or let him through. Glassy brown eyes stared out from a bushy beard which hid virtually the entire face, save the lobes of the ears which stuck out from underneath a stained green hat.

With a grunt of effort the drunk began to haul himself upwards - fighting against gravity and his own inebriation, to somehow managed to gain a foothold and with much cursing and grumbling throw a leg over the tip of the fence and straddle the gate.

Overjoyed with the success of his effort he threw his hands up in the air and clapped several times, oblivious to his lack of balance and overconfidence his other leg followed the first and the drunk fell to the concrete of the other side with a painful thud. His head lolled from side to side as he struggled through the pain and the haze of his stupor.

"Fuck off!" He groaned, rolling over to his stomach and pulling the torn, stained greatcoat which had one been coloured an olive-green, but was closer to grey back around his shoulders. Climbing to his feet unsteadily, the fuzzy-faced drunk stumbled forwards towards his prize - reaching the industrial waste bins in time to use their side handles to keep himself from falling over.

No sooner had he pushed the lid of the closest bin upwards than a coruscating arc of blue energy leapt from somewhere behind his vision and struck the guttering above his head - the metal exploding in a shower of white-hot sparks. The drunk immediately dropped the lid closed, reasoning somewhere in his riddled mind that the bin might be booby-trapped.

His fears were proven unfounded a second tendril of energy burst out of the thin air itself and struck the bin to his left - blowing the lid open and ejecting cardboard, soiled linen and banana peel up and across the alley. Spinning around to face the far brick wall, the befuddled man rubbed his eyes several times as a second, third and fourth bolt of blue erupted from the empty space in front of him, with the last close enough to sear the stained shoulder of his coat black.

The lightning increased in frequency, until it was firing non-stop across the alley - all coming from a common point, barely a foot above the concrete floor but with nothing visibly responsible, that might explain the impossible miniature storm.

A terrific flash of the most brilliant intensity pushed the drunk over, so that he fell against the bin and drove the back of his head into the steel. His already glassy eyes rolled upwards towards the top of his head, and his fingers flexed involuntarily. The moss-covered brickwork, the scattered garbage and the mesh fencing were all invisible in a single second of bright light that covered everything in blue.

Rolling on to his side, the man shook his head as if it would shake loose the cobwebs that made the world around him slow, and slurred, and cruel. Blinking his eyes several times and coughing loudly the drunk's gaze was pulled to a cracked glass bottle, lying on top of the remains of a soiled daily newspaper. He eyed the sweet brown scotch which sloshed lazily inside it and stretched out a fingerless glove to snatch it to his lips.

His forehead creased in confusion as another hand covered his own - smaller, bare, with nimble fingertips. Following the wrist and arm to which the hand belonged, the drunk's confused frown only deepened as he took in the striking woman who had spontaneously appeared before him.

"Fuck off!" he hissed as he pulled the bottle out from under the hand and almost dropped it back to the concrete in his hurry to rip the top off and guzzle the sweet nectar within. "I found it first. It's mine!"

The mysterious woman who had until then been crouched in a foetal position, silently rose to upwards so that she stood six feet in height. Striking emerald eyes framed by alabaster features studied the man before them, with total impassion as if somehow evaluating him on the biological or atomic level.

A crown of bright blonde hair fell down over pale shoulders and further over a pair of full, creamy breasts each topped with a peach-coloured nipple, slowly hardening in the chill of the surrounding night. A taut stomach defined by the slightest definition lines of muscles running underneath met high hips, a handful of blonde curls a short distance beneath a delicate belly button marking the gateway to her intimacy. A pair of powerful legs rounded at the calves held her standing.

As naked as the day her mother had presumably brought her into the world, the stranger's chin dipped as she continued to study the virtually paralytic person before her. Slowly the woman stooped until her face was a short distance from the bushy features of the drunk.

Where before her skin had been pale to porcelain, the tone began to alter - changing first to white, then the lightest grey and darkening so that it more resembled metal. Where before her nose, eyes and lips had been well defined these permanent markers of a person lost their shape and solidity and merged backwards, so that her face was as blank as any shop mannequin selling wares in a window.

The change spread in all directions so that blonde hair became silver and her breasts, stomach and limbs began to pulsate and shift in dancing pools of shimmering metal, that seemed to act more like a liquid than a solid. This liquid metal reversed direction as quickly as it had first appeared and soon a new nose, and lips, and hair were defined.

The drunk's head lolled backwards and he came face-to-face with himself. A scraggly face framed by thick wiry hair with barely space for the eyes and lips and nostrils to be visible let alone skin. The same hat adorned his doppelgänger head and the same formerly-green greatcoat was worn around his shoulders.

"Fuck off …" He grumbled as he watched the same fingerless gloves he wore on his hands take a hold of his lapels and pull him from up from the concrete and off his feet.

A man waiting for a taxi, a woman thrusting a bible into the air and proclaiming the end of times. A young boy hand-in-hand with his first love as they made their way to the cinema and perhaps their first kiss, an elderly couple with fifty seven years of marriage and a lifetime of happy memories. Each heard the sound of glass breaking against concrete and the slightest cry of pain and most turned their heads towards the alley.

Only the elderly couple hesitated as if, perhaps, they should investigate.

When a striking young woman dressed in a smartly tailored sky-blue dress which reached to the calves, and glittering high-heeled shoes of the same colour walked briskly out of the darkness of the alley, the couple exchanged glances and nodded between themselves as they hurried on.

It wasn't safe for decent folk on these streets any more. A young girl looking like that could get hurt around here.