AREOPOLIS, MARS – 10 DECEMBER 2960 (Earth Standard)

The desk officer looked up from the computer terminal and seemed surprised. "Allon?" he asked. "You supposed to be here? I thought you were still signed off on sick leave."

Gim Allon shrugged. "Sarge, I kept telling them there was nothing wrong with me. I got sick of being poked and prodded, and the last time I ate any food that bad was when I was twelve and we went to my Aunt Miriam's house for a Hanukkah dinner."

"I thought you'd been hit by a meteorite."

"Nearly. But it landed close enough that I got what they thought was radiation damage." Gim mentally tsked at himself. Sergeant Krupke was okay as sergeants ran, but he didn't owe the guy all the fine details over the whole incident – which, for him, had been more embarrassing than dangerous, anyway. "I guess they got sick of me kvetching at them, couldn't find any more excuses to keep me there and said fine, go back to work, don't blame us if you shrivel up and die."

Krupke sort of smiled. It was hard to tell sometimes. "Good attitude, kid. Good to see. You go out there and go get 'em, eh?"

"Thanks, Sarge. Feels good to be back."

Allon headed off towards the locker rooms to get into uniform for his shift. Much as he made light of it, the lay-off had been frustrating. He was lucky; he genuinely enjoyed his job – being a Science Police officer had been something he'd wanted since he knew what policemen were, and he'd been backed all the way (well, once his mother realised he wasn't going to be type to be a rabbi like Uncle Reuben). But he'd been on the force only six months when he'd been benched.

The vacation had been great. It was his first serious time off since graduating from the academy, and he'd persuaded Gigi to come along with him. Gigi Cusimano had gone through training with him; he'd finally worked up the nerve to ask her out only two weeks before graduation, and he'd been actually shocked when she said yes. This was the first time they'd really gone anywhere big since they'd become a couple – something they'd done their best to keep on the down low; Gigi was twitchy about regulations.

They'd been sand-skiing at a resort in the Tharsis hills. He'd been showboating a little in front of her when the fiery blaze fell out of the sky. It was a freak of bad luck that the meteorite was still big enough to be dangerous; even though they'd ditched the skis and tried to run for cover, it still landed close enough to him to throw up a hole ten meters deep and throw him around like a rag doll. The Geiger counters were practically seething as the rescue party tried to get him. He'd been out of it at the time, but Gigi said that they'd actually had to use automated lifters to get him out of the hole, and they'd used an ambulance with special lead-lined walls to get him to a medical facility.

Tharsis hadn't been equipped for something like that, so – with the vacation effectively over – he'd been shipped back to Areopolis, and he'd been left sitting on his tush the last month. Feels like I've got to start over and prove myself all over again, he thought as he buckled the weapons belt.

Gigi met him at the door of the locker room. They'd been assigned together today, a routine street patrol downtown – a little unusual; they were both relative rookies, and normally he worked alongside Dan Ferguson, who had ten years behind the badge. Gim allowed himself a discreet smile. He was doing the job that he'd always wanted to do; he was working alongside – and dating – an absolute dish; he was in the prime of health (the doctors had admitted that). The only small worry on the horizon was that he didn't think his parents were all that happy about him dating a shiksa (Mom thought Gigi was adorable, but she was Catholic). Not that he was thinking about marriage right now, but Mom had already been making what she thought were subtle hints about kids from mixed marriages being raised in the faith.

A small worry, right now. He was living the dream, right?

Downtown Areopolis didn't look much changed through his patrolman's gaze. Still wall-to-wall people with the usual kaleidoscope of appearances, clothes, hairstyle fads – the mohawk look seemed to be coming back, especially among guys who looked tough (or just wanted to look tough). Ferguson had always said that Mars wasn't Rimbor; the crime wasn't right out there in your face. But if you were in tune with the street, you'd see the menace stand out from the general weird like a holo-ad. You just had to be ready for it.

They were ambling through a shopplex when Gim saw it. "There," he said. "See that guy?"

Gigi followed his gaze. "Got him."

The subject of their attention was a small, stockily-built fellow – Gigi barely made the SP height standard at 1.7 metres and this guy didn't look much bigger. He was wearing a grubby jacket and a shirt with the played-out legend My parents went to Ventura and all I got was this lousy T-shirt. At a guess, his parents had never got closer to Ventura, the gamblers' world, than Jupiter orbit.

"Tweaker?" Gigi asked.

"My guess. Looking for something," said Gim.

"Not something. Someone." Gigi was already pacing ahead of him. Mr Ventura was staring at a young woman with a blonde bubble perm who was too busy reading something on her handcom to notice. Gim and Gigi sped up. He saw the man reach for something in his pocket as he opened his own stride towards her. "Hold it right there!" Gim shouted.

Ventura saw them and turned sharp on his heels to start running. That was enough; nobody runs from the cops unless they have something to hide. He neatly skirted around the edge of a crowd, and Gigi was agile enough to follow his path. Gim blundered into a small knot of people, and by the time that he'd mumbled his apologies and got clear, Gigi and Ventura were about twenty metres ahead of him.

Ventura shouted something too distorted and angry for Gim to understand as he shoved people aside at an elevator car leading to the plex's upper levels. Gigi was quick enough to get in it with him before the doors closed, and Gim could only watch.

Now he took out what he'd been scrambling for. A small laser knife. Probably just a ten-centimetre blade, but that was more than enough to do serious damage. He lunged at Gigi, who dodged him – but the car wasn't that big. He'd tag her anytime soon. Gim clenched his fists. He had to get up there!

And as that thought flashed into his mind, he felt it. Like sudden weight was gathering inside him and his body tissues were being pushed aside to make room for it. He looked up at the elevator car. It was getting closer. Not because it was descending again. It was him. His eye level was rising!

Gim heard the rip as the seams of his uniform gave way. The shirt was hanging off him like a cape now. He glanced down quickly. The drop was alarming; he must be – what, ten metres tall now, and still growing! He reached up to the elevator car – his hands looked the size of excavator shovels by now – and pressed down hard on the roof. From the sound of the shrieking machinery inside it, he had the kind of strength now that you'd expect from something that big.

The car tore partially free of its moorings; Gigi lost her balance, smashed through the glass walls, and Gim caught her, one massive arm cradling her like a baby. With his other hand he swatted Ventura to the car floor. That knife would stab like a pinprick now.

Gigi looked up at him, her eyes went wide with shock and she simply fainted. As Gim heard the sirens and the approach of reinforcements, he simply asked himself What the hell…?

As Gigi and Ventura were being taken away, Gim felt a lurching sensation as he began to shrink back to his normal height. The aftermath of the incident had been crazy. His report would probably break something in the SP's data banks, he thought. And as the weirdness was absorbed, the jokes were starting, with comments about how lucky he was that his pants had mostly stayed on, one wiseacre coined the nickname "King Schlong", which was already showing signs of sticking. Gotta love cop humour.

Not that that was something that they could talk about at the Allons' dinner table. They usually had a more formal meal after returning from the synagogue on Saturday night and the end of the Sabbath; and his mother had insisted that Gim invite Gigi – who had suffered no worse in all the madness than a few bruises and minor abrasions.

"How tall did you get in the end?" his mother asked.

"One of the crime scene guys analysed the news footage," Gim answered. "He pegged it at 14.4 metres."

"I'm just pleased you weren't damaged by it," said his father. "Under normal circumstances, the cube-square law won't allow humans that size. Your legs should have broken under your own weight."

Gim saw Gigi blanch. "Stop that, Wynn," Marte Allon chided. "You're frightening Gigi."

"So what happens to you now?" Wynn Allon knew when to fight his wife and when not.

"I don't think anything happens," his son insisted. "Nobody's asked for my badge. Sergeant Krupke thinks I may even be up for a commendation. As far as I'm concerned, I'm still just a cop. I just have an – unusual talent."

"I don't know," said Marte. "These are strange times. Remember that news broadcast a few months ago? Those three youngsters who saved the life of R.J. Brande. They all had unusual talents like Gim does now."

"I said then that there's nothing unusual about Braalians controlling magnetism. They can all do that. How else do they play magnoball?"

"Pedantry," said Marta. "It's unusual here." She turned to smile at her son. "Who knows, Gim? There could be really big things in your future."