"Do they know?"

"No. And Mr Huron would prefer if we keep it that way." Marabou walks up to the door of H4-303, ignoring the intercom phone with embedded camera, and raps directly on the door. She waits. Then raps again. And then pounds. There's no way to tell if it's penetrated through the hip-hop ba.s.s emanating from inside.

Heavy footsteps shuffle towards the door, suggesting a senile hippopotamus in fuzzy slippers. A moment later, the door opens to reveal a very fat, very white kid wearing a very loud hoodie patterned with neon pink robot monkeys. He is scuffing at his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes are red and the reek of dope has soaked right through the hoodie into his pores. He's muttering as he opens the door, "Listen, you people need to chillax, man, the residents' a.s.sociation can get a restraining order Christb.a.l.l.s!" His bloodshot eyes open very wide as he registers the Marabou. He falls backwards into the house, barely recovering his balance before scrambling away in his dirty socks, yelping, "Dude, it's happening! They're f.u.c.king here, man! Break out the hardware! s.h.i.t!"

Marabou strides into the townhouse, right behind him. I'm about to follow, but Mark puts his arm across the doorframe, like a security boom and gives a little shake of his head. From inside, there is the noise of gunfire, strangely hollow, and then a lot of shouting.

"Get the guns! Get the freaking guns!" fat boy squeals.

Another voice, p.i.s.sed off, bemused (p.i.s.smused?). "Hey! You guys aren't supposed to be here"

And a third, weary, "Dude, there are no guns"

Fat boy screams. "No, no, no, don't you even f.u.c.king, don't you come near"

Then there is a dull crunch, followed by whimpering.

Mark lifts his arm, wafts his hand ostentatiously to usher me inside. I enter the house, cautiously. It's done up in a mash of just-moved-out-of-home boy decor. They've made a bit of an effort. The cla.s.sic movie posters: The G.o.dfather The G.o.dfather, Swamp Thing Swamp Thing, Kill Bill Kill Bill, all framed. The katana above the giant flatscreen TV is wall-mounted, the trophy cans of beer stacked on top of the bookshelf are perfectly lined up so that the labels all face outward.

There are two boys sitting on the plush red couch. One is bare-chested in jeans, the fly unb.u.t.toned. He has natty little dreads and a small gold loop in his ear, and he's pouting like he ordered strippers for his birthday and got clowns instead.

The other I recognise from glimpses of a music video. The boy-half of iJusi has big heartbreaker eyes, an upturned b.u.t.ton nose and dimples. He'll grow out of it, maybe even in the next six months, but S'bu still has something beautifully childlike about him, and even his poser att.i.tude can't undermine the sweetness that rises off him like fumes. He's practically edible.

They're both holding Playstation controllers, the source of the gunfire, I now realise, and they're both staring at Marabou and the fat kid, who is holding his b.l.o.o.d.y nose with both hands. The Stork cranes its neck forward to nudge her hand with its beak. She looks at the blood on her knuckles with forensic distaste, and wipes it off on the side of the couch. Dazed, the fat kid collapses into the La-Z-Boy.

Mark sets the Mutt down, picks up one of seven remotes on the coffee-table by coincidence, it just so happens to be the right one and kills the stereo.

Half-naked boy opens his mouth to complain, "Hey, that's"

The Dog gives a shrieky little snarl and Mark says, "Shut up, Des. No one's talking to you." He perches on the edge of the low black teak coffee-table, pushing aside a gimmicky odour-free silver ashtray shaped like a flying saucer, and folds his legs. "Well, boys, this is quite the scene."

S'bu stands up and walks over to the ashtray. "I know, I know," he says, in the patented world-weary way of teenagers. He pushes down on the top of the UFO, which whirrs open with a buzz and strobing lights, and stubs out his joint.

"She bwoke by dose" the fat white boy starts.

"Shut up, Arno. It's your own stupid fault," snaps the half-naked kid with the dreads.

"You know you're not supposed to be smoking, S'bu," Mark chides.

"Didn't I already say, I know, I know?"

"Can these two take a hike?"

He shrugs. "Arno and Des are my boys."

"We need to talk about your sister."

"Whad's up wid your sisduh, dude? You didn'd say budding about your sisduh. Whad's up wid da Song?"

"Shut up up, Arno," Des and S'bu say in unison.

"'Cos she hasn'd been awound. Shid. When lasd did we see her?"

"Dude. When last did you see your a.r.s.e?"

Arno looks hurt, although it's hard to tell if his hangdog expression is par for the course, or just a result of his eyes starting to swell.

"Is that the only contraband?" Amira says.

"Des is holding," S'bu indicates his friend. Des cringes, pulls out a bankie bankie of weed and gingerly hands it over to Amira. of weed and gingerly hands it over to Amira.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Mark asks.

"Nah, it's just, we thought you were" Des says. "The cops."

"Zombies," Arno says at the same time.

"Why would you be worried about the cops?"

"I dunno. Just. 'Cos." He waves a hand vaguely in the direction of the ashtray. There's a couple of video game boxes lying next to it, starring flesh-eating undead and aliens. One, Grand Theft Auto VI: Zootopia Grand Theft Auto VI: Zootopia, features a bada.s.s in a hoodie, packing a shotgun with a snarling Panther by his side.

"You know this means we're going to have to search the house. Again."

"Whatever," S'bu says, and slumps back into the couch, picking up the controller and going right back to his game, a first-person slayer. He's playing a mini-skirted girl with spiky green hair and a machine-gun for an arm facing down shambling hordes of particularly monstrous aliens.

"Do you want to go back to rehab, S'bu?"

"Doesn't bother me." But I notice he flinches, enough to throw off his shot. On screen, an alien manages to gore his arm, knocking his health down to 89 per cent.

"This is Zinzi December. She wants to talk to you. Help her out," Mark says.

"It's for a story for a magazine. Credo Credo?" I bluff.

"Oh yeah?" S'bu isn't even vaguely interested, but Des perks up dramatically.

"Credo cooks, bro," he says, nudging S'bu's arm. "You're in cooks, bro," he says, nudging S'bu's arm. "You're in Credo Credo, you're in. h.e.l.ls yes, lady. My boy is down."

"Great," I say.

"Whatever, you clear it with these guys," S'bu says, still intent on his game.

"Oh, we're 'down'," Mark says. He whistles for the Mutt. The Dog jumps off the red pouf and immediately starts sniffing around the room with great seriousness, tail wagging. S'bu lifts his feet for the Dog as it snuffles around the bottom of the couch.

"Just seeds, man," says Des.

The Dog follows its nose out of the room, Mark and Amira behind it. We can hear them climbing the stairs. A minute later, there is the sound of objects being thrown around.

"Shid, dude, whad if she breags by shid?" Arno says.

"Then I'll buy you more s.h.i.t. Will you shut up? You're wrecking my concentration."