Free Link Arms with Toads! by Rhys Hughes

and turned into a cyclopean garage. The interior was unlit and Alleneal played games with his torch, angling it under his chin and illuminating his horrible face from below. As his hand trembled in the low temperature, and the halogen bulb cast a shifting glow over his cheeks, tiny shadows moved inside his dimples and pockmarks. Melissa was reminded more than ever of the moon: a lunar day, sunrise to sunset, fleeing across his visage as the beam rose higher and abruptly turned away to prick a ludicrously small hole in the void. Down on the floor of the hall, metal gleamed.
    “ Bulldozers?” she hissed. “You’ll never be able to lift these into space. Your jokes become more crass.”
    He touched her elbow. “Buggies, if you please. These are my babies, Ms Sting, the key to my future tranquillity.” He breathed on her neck, a moistening of the clue, but she was too stubborn to work at the hint. It was a relief to return outside, to flee the stench of antique diesel and damp earth on caterpillar tracks, oppressive as the odours of a roadside allotment. Alleneal watched her warily.
    She snapped: “It is clear you are trying to obstruct my mission. My report will not be sabotaged by such foolish tactics. You should revise expectations about claiming any bonus.”
    He seemed hurt. “You are closing your eyes to your surroundings, Ms Sting. It’s all here, you know. We’re on the threshold of a new age, one we’ve been chasing for decades, without even knowing it. Birmingham has finally woken. Our traditional strengths no longer shame us. We know how to exploit our most valuable resource.”
    “ And that is?” she asked bitterly.
    He rolled his eyes upwards, leaving rotten eggs in his sockets, and pressed palms in an attitude of prayer. “Entropy.” He held the stance for a full minute, before scratching the emptiness above his head, as if he wore an invisible halo infested with fleas. Exhausted by the messianic fervour of his pronouncement, he staggered away. “I must rest. Tomorrow, I will show you Moseley and Olton, the venues for serenity and crises.” Hunched, but with supplicating hands, he left her, a series of hops too athletic for one in his condition.
    Trapped by the threatening stares of natives, she returned to the limousine. The chauffeur followed the familiar route, but now everything looked different, more open and yet cluttered with the jagged peaks of dilapidated buildings. The horizon was nearer: the Chinese Quarter was hidden by the curvature of the city, looming into view with a terrifying clarity. She stormed into the Arcade Hotel and shut herself in her room. Behind one wall, a prostitute entertained a sterile client, mouthing an obscene checklist of erotic controls.
    The city was not insane, as she had suspected, but simply following its instincts to a logical extreme. This might have happened in London, but the separate boroughs maintained equilibrium by pulling in different directions. Here, the tension was all directed inward. Birmingham seemed ready to snap in on itself. Time to leave: she needed to gather only one piece of evidence to complete her report. She would have to confront the councillor directly and demand a copy of the map hidden under his shirt. If he refused, she would exercise her authority and muscles, tearing the sackcloth monstrosity from his back.
    There was something in her shoe. When she bent down to remove it, a cloud of soot puffed in her face. She had a use for this abducted filth. In the cracked mirror, jumping at each eruption out in the city, Melissa rubbed the dirt into her hair and face. She ripped her own shirt, worked holes in her trousers with her little sharp teeth and scuffed the polish of her shoes against a radiator pipe. Now she looked like a local: only the multiple earrings were missing.
    On the streets, she passed unnoticed. Demolitions were taking place everywhere. Girders and blocks fell more slowly than they should, almost gently enough to be