IDD: READY STEADY GO PROLOGUE

The "Garage" - at least, that small, glittering part of it that has remained a garage, after the Doonlup's bustling tourist metropolis has mushroomed up around it - is almost too quiet at night.

Old houses will settle, as any child knows. Eaves will creak, things will bump about in attics, and curtains will rustle without a breeze to stir them. But even these cabin-story spooks have the organic texture of humanity to them; someone had to hammer the eaves together, after all, and someone somewhere must have thought that twitching drapes were just what that corner of the living room needed. The stainless steel honeycomb nestled within the Doonlup's "Garage", by comparison, contains no such human error.

Designed in immaculately polished silvers, with each individual cell constructed on a flawless parabolic curve that bespeaks a far greater-than-human intelligence, the garage is a fragile, twinkling, latticework, tended to and curated by tireless clittering droids - tiny insectoid nursemaids scuttling across occupants of a monument as still and sacred as dewdrops suspended in a spider's web.

This, after all, is the hub of all that the Doonlup love. It is where they accomodate their slumbering heroes.

Apollo himself could have swelled with pride at having his chariot ensconced in such a shrine. All the Angels of Hell might have been convinced to lean their gleaming chrome legions against its walls. Any Correlian freighter with a malfunctioning hyperdrive may well have wept with the belief that it had died and gone to heaven.

Sadly, like most things that humans get their mucky fingers into, it wasn't to last.

"Show meeee tha way ta go hooooome!" a shambling figure, all horrifically tacky luau shirt and whiskeyscent, whoops deliriously into the chapel silence.

The figure is not a very good singer, but it must be said that she does have a remarkable voice - even if most remarks on it would have to be of a vulgar, and possibly blasphemous, nature. To attempt to describe it with words is to spare a reader, as no mere collection of text can possibly convey the same sensation as the sound itself; it is as if a sadistic giant has picked up the hapless listener, and is enthusiastically stuffing habeñero pepper into said listener's ear with one mighty thumb. It is a cobbled grab bag of what could possibly be British accents from before Britain got its shaving together, pumped full of screaming neon profanities, with chunks of 'Joisey' rising to the surface like caustic onion in a simmering verbal gumbo.

As if this weren't bad enough, the whole auditory red tide has all somehow been funneled, twisted, and licked shut like a Scouse rollup, giving the whole experience the vaguely uncomfortable vibration of contents under intense pressure.

It is a voice that could be pulled over one's head like a tarpaulin to deflect splatters of watermelon. There are harmonics and resonances and arpeggios to which the term "blast radius" could be deemed appropriate.

But when all's said and done, she still can't carry a tune in a bucket.

"Aaaah'm tired an' I wanna go ta bed!" the figure wails good-naturedly, smacking one palm against the formerly spotless heat-reader, then staggering through the soundproof door as it reluctantly slides aside. Using the hand not clutching a bottle of Bearhugger's Old Familiar, she flings off a white plexiplast headset, which bounces off the fender of the cell's formerly lone occupant.

"Shee-yooooooooow me th' waaaaaaay ta go hooooome!"

The cell's legitimate occupant, a squat lump of Detroit steel, with lurid smears of graffiti nearly covering its deceptively jolly pastel paintjob, flicks its headlights on and revs its engine threateningly.

"Fffff, turn'em fings off, wouldja? I'mma go blind!" the human figure hisses, waving one arm furiously. 'S me, 's Crow, yer mad old biddy..."

The engine quiets. The truck seems sheepish, and guiltily dims its brights.

The figure drains the last of the bottle in her fist, slumps against the passenger side of the truck, and regards the empty bottle with a lover's sigh. "Spare me a penny, Gladys, " - for that is the truck's name - "Y'ever wond'r if we're doon th' right thing?" The truck rocks on its tires, and tootles once.

"I know that," Crow snaps, glaring irritably, somewhere to the left of the truck's nonexistent ear. "But it don't... I mean, I know it ain't like I woulda made things any better bein' there, but some of them kids... I worry, yer know?"

Gladys expels the vehicular equivalent of a "tsk" from her tailpipe.

"See you, you filthy girl!" Crow hoots, and affectionately punches the truck's side. "He weren't nothin' but a thief, what I heard! Weren't my type'r my jurisdiction und'r any case, anyhow." She belches once. "Hrnnf. Nice man, though. Good with kids. Speakin' of 'oom, yer'll never guess who's here..." She blinks, struggling to regain her thread. "Never did get ta find out what happened ta th' kid on th' rollerskates, though, did we? 'R that hairy bugger with the rabbit. Or his friend wiv th' - "

The truck's brake lights flicker suddenly.

"Oh, aye, well, we saw whut became of oul' Erroneous soon enough, didn' we?" The smile that follows is disjointed and strangely terrible. If the Garage did contain people at this time of night, it might have sent a shiver through them. But the spiders remain unmoved, and the great steel water clock that is the Garage ticks on as normal. The engine turns over, almost imperceptibly, but Crow is apparently attuned to this sort of response. Or she's a nutter who talks to her truck.

"Whutchu mean 'where am I gonna go'?" Crow sniffs, peering into the bottle, as if to avoid meeting Gladys' eye. "If it comes ta tha', I've got my choice, 'aven't I? 'Any place in time'r space', that's what th' ad said." She gyrates both arms mysteriously, gradually listing to port, and dropping into a sitting position. "I could go ta tha' pub Mark Twain used ta hang out in, I could wish m'self into Summerslam Gorefest V, I could visit th' dimension of chocolate mousse an' rock bands, I could tell 'em ta take me ta Nixon's grave so's I could widdle on it..."

Gladys' tailpipe bangs once, sharply.

"Awright, awright, tha' was over th' top, I admit it," Crow says, looking chastened, and waving one hand. "F'rgot about yer dang ladylike sensibilities, darlin'..."

Gladys settles into a moody silence, and Crow fills it again, nervously taking off her hat and fiddling with it. "But tha'ss what they said. 'Any place in space' or... 'r time." Another silence. Gladys' headlights narrow suspicously. The horn blats rudely.

"Ah, an' there's th' rub, Gladys," Crow sighs, glancing over her shoulder at the truck. "Yeh know I can't hide nothin' from you, darlin'." The shadows on her face shift unreadably, as the courtesy fluorescent rigs flicker off. "... hnf. Yeah... was all in th' ad, weren't it? Time an' space. Hah." There is a rusty chuckle, which sounds distinctly as if it comes from a much older woman.

"Which works out jus' fine fer us, don't it? 'Cause it ain't a where we're tryin' ta get to."

She lifts her head and grins in the darkness. It is crooked, conniving, and more than a little drunk.

"It's a when."

A pause, before Gladys tilts and pops open her passenger-side door, spilling out soft white light, and the scent of a vegetable curry air freshener. Crow brightens, standing up and stretching. "-och!- Cheers there, luv." She toddles unsteadily, bends over and picks up her headset, then chucks the empty whiskey bottle over her shoulder, where it explodes against the far wall. "Shove up y'r steerin' wheel so's I haven't got ta sleep like a tapeworm, eh?"

The door swings shut again a few seconds later, and the respectful hush falls over the Garage again.