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Each squad member wore a helmet fitted with standard imaging and guidance displays, and light body armour under a vivid yellow uniform. They carried medium-range stun-guns, which were effective up to fifty metres. Above that distance the guns delivered only a painful jolt. Below fifty metres, but set on maximum output, the guns ceased merely to incapacitate and became crippling, sometimes lethal. It was routine for the kill freaks to jam the power settings so they were stuck permanently on maximum and if anybody ever got too close... well scuffle their horrible trouble-making luck.

As they approached the breached section of the perimeter the chemical smoke and burning brush made it increasingly difficult for the squads to maintain contact. Imaging and guidance became unreliable and once in among the fires individual squad members began to lose sight of each other.

The first stage of Keefer‟s plan was working.

Fanson stared at the Judicial Therapist. He couldn‟t believe what was happening to him. „But I didn‟t do it,‟ he protested weakly. „I really didn‟t do it. I didn‟t kill Mickey.‟

„There is nothing to be gained by a denial now,‟ said the Therapist gravely.

„I never left my office.‟

„And that is the truth as you see it?‟

„That is the truth as I see it, the truth as I remember it, the truth as I know it, it‟s the scuffling truth!‟ yelled Fanson.

The Therapist smiled. „You lose your temper easily. Could you kill in a rage like that?‟

„Why don‟t you ask the computer,‟ said Fanson subsiding again.

The Therapist swivelled a small screen towards him. „You have already been shown the computer‟s assessment,‟ he said, „but if you wish you may see it again.‟

„What for? It‟s crud. From beginning to end its scuffling crud. I don‟t know who or how but somebody‟s shafted that machine.‟

„I find your continual use of crude language quite significant,‟ said the Therapist thoughtfully. „How do you feel about it?‟

„You‟re joking,‟ said Fanson.

„No.‟

„Crude language?‟ The urge to laugh pushed at the back of Fanson‟s throat.

The Therapist leaned forward slightly. „Are there any other crudenesses, images of bodily functions perhaps, which come to your mind when you think of what‟s happening to you?‟

„There is one,‟ said Fanson.

The Therapist sensed a breakthrough. His private studies were paying off at last. His conviction that judicial therapists should be more than formal officers of the court, more than low-grade computer technicians, was about to be vindicated.

„Yes?‟ he urged, his eyes bright with evangelical fervour.

„What is the image?‟

Fanson stared at him in silence.

„The image. What does it relate to? You must tell me!‟

„If you insist. It relates to you.‟

„Me?‟

Fanson nodded. „I think you‟re a scuffling arse,‟ he said flatly. „Now why don‟t you just do what you‟re paid to do and press the buttons.‟

„I‟m sorry for you,‟ said the Therapist coldly.

„We can agree on something then. I‟m sorry for me too.‟

Fanson felt the moulded head and neck restraints slip into place and then felt his scalp prickle as the Therapist activated the control board and thousands of microscopic needles slipped into the skin of his head and neck from the flexible webbing that had shaped itself to the contours of his skull.

The Therapist balanced the feedback from the thousands of electrical contacts. „You are responsible for the death of Jon Michaelson. Your inability to accept the truth has been registered as a level ten psychosis. As prescribed by law in Section Eight Paragraph One of the Penal Medical Code you will undergo total restructuring. The cost of this treatment and all subsequent retraining will be met by the state.‟

Terror shot through Fanson at last, paralysing his lungs.

Retraining! Retraining for what? To be able to feed himself and keep himself clean. So he wouldn‟t quite be a vegetable.

But near enough. Jerro Fanson would be gone, gone for good, gone forever, gone. Dead. He would be dead and gone, forgotten, never known. He struggled for a last moment‟s dignity, but his body betrayed him. „I‟ve pissed