Transition

I snap out of my reverie when the waiter nudges my seat – deliberately, probably – waking me from my dream.

The light has changed, the remnants of pasta are quite cold. I glance at my watch. It is fifteen past four o’clock. If I stick with this body then even if I try to run through the crowds, by the time I get to San Marco I’ll be half an hour late. Maybe I should take the next right and get to the Grand Canal, call a water taxi. Or maybe I should do the smart thing and just swap bodies with somebody already in San Marco. I close my eyes, prepare to do whatever it was that let me flit across to this body.

And can’t do it.

What? What’s going on?

I try again, but still nothing. It’s like I’m back to being blocked again. I’m stuck with this body.

I rise, throw down a handful of notes to cover the bill, start walking quickly in the direction of the San Marco and pull out the phone to call Adrian, wondering if I can still sense Concern people remotely like I could before, or if that’s gone too, then stop in mid-button press and mid-stride, stumbling to a halt as I realise, yes, I can still sense stuff and what I sense now is that a profound change has taken place within the Palazzo Chirezzia.

Something very strange and unpleasant has appeared in the small crowd of Concern people in and around the building, something bizarrely different, and not benign.

Who or what is that?

Whatever or whoever it is, I have the disturbing feeling that it’s what is blocking me, and also that as I look at it, it’s looking straight back at me, with a kind of predatory fascination.

“Hello. Who’s this?”

“Ade, it’s Fred, who you are coming to meet.”

“Yeah, Fred, right. Look, mate, I’m en route, amn’t I? Bit optimistic getting through the formalities and then from the old aeroporto to the city in forty-odd minutes. Sorry about that, but you know what it’s like. In a water taxi wotsit now, though, making maximum speed. Driver says we should be there in about ten, fifteen minutes. That be all right?”

“Yes. Adrian, please tell your driver to take you to the Rialto. I’ll meet you there. Not San Marco, I’m ru

“ Rialto, not San Marco. Gotcha. That’s the bridge, i

“That’s right.”

“Okey-doke. See you there, mate.”

“Don’t display the box, though.”

“Eh? Oh. Okay.”

“Stand as close as you can to the very middle of the bridge, right at the top of the walking surface.”

“Got that. Middle, top.”

“What outer clothes are you wearing?”

“Blue jeans, white shirt, sort of, umm, orangey, beigey leather jacket.”

“I’ll find you.”

“Okay, then. See you there.”

The voice was sing-song. “Here-here, hyah-hyah!”

In the main study of the Palazzo Chirezzia, Bisquitine sat sprawled, unladylike, on a rather grand couch whose white covering had only recently been removed. She picked her nose, then inspected the finger involved, cross-eyed. Mrs Siankung sat to one side of her, one of her handlers to the other. Madame d’Ortolan sat on an ornate chair a couple of metres away across a Persian rug and a still sheet-covered occasional table. The other handlers stood behind the couch.

“Now, my dear,” Madame d’Ortolan said quietly, “be very sure about this. He’s still here, still in the city? Still in Venice. Are you certain?”

Bisquitine sucked in her lips, looked meaningfully up at the painted ceiling of the study and said, “These are my lawyers, called Gumsip and Slurridge, they’ll send you the bill and then talk of demurrage.” She smiled broadly, displaying white teeth with little bits of seaweed stuck between them. The body she’d found herself within when they had transitioned had been that of a smartly dressed young woman carrying a briefcase. She’d been standing on a pontoon waiting for a vaporetto when her own consciousness had been displaced by that of Bisquitine, who had immediately decided the weed growing on the side of the floating jetty looked edible; in fact, delicious.

Madame d’Ortolan looked at Mrs Siankung, who watched Bisquitine with anxious concentration. Bisquitine appeared dishevelled already; hair awry, her businesswoman’s jacket removed as an a

“She will need one of the other blockers to be sure,” Mrs Siankung a

Madame d’Ortolan and Mr Kleist exchanged glances. They were out of character, in a sense. He was too young, wiry and blond, she too fat and awkward, with badly dyed grey-black hair and a loud orange velour trouser suit. Mrs Siankung was similarly wrong, manifesting as a massive, robustly built woman in a voluminous yellow dress who needed a three-pointed aluminium stick to walk. They’d had no time to find body types closer to their own, especially as they’d all had to transition together with Bisquitine and her handlers, who had been similarly randomised in physiques.

Madame d’Ortolan frowned. “A blocker? You’re sure?”

“I think you mean a spotter,” Mr Kleist suggested.

“No, a blocker,” Mrs Siankung said, reaching out to flick an unruly lock off her charge’s forehead. “And it has to be one of those who was here earlier, with the first intervention team.”

Madame d’Ortolan glanced at Mr Kleist and nodded. He left the room. Bisquitine made as though to slap Mrs Siankung’s hand away, then started pulling at her long, brown, still mostly gathered-up hair, tugging a thick length of it free and putting the end of it in her mouth and starting to chew contentedly on it. She looked at a distant painting with an expression of great concentration.

“What will happen to the blocker?” Madame d’Ortolan asked.

Mrs Siankung looked at her. “You know what will happen.”

Mr Kleist returned with one of the two blockers a few minutes later.

The young man had been dried off after his dunking in the canal beside the palace’s landing stage. His dark hair was slicked down, he was dressed in a towelling robe and he was smoking a cigarette.

“Put that out,” Mrs Siankung told him.

“I work better with it,” he said, glancing to Madame d’Ortolan, who remained expressionless.

He sighed, took a final deep draw, found an ashtray on the broad desk and stubbed the cigarette out. He took a frowning look at Bisquitine as he did so. She was in turn obviously fascinated by him, staring wide-eyed and still holding the hank of hair to her mouth while she chewed noisily at it.

A slight, bald man hurried through the study doors, came up to Madame d’Ortolan and kissed her hand.

“Madame, I am at your disposal.”

“Professore Loscelles,” she replied, patting his hand. “A pleasure, as ever. I am so sorry your lovely home has been made such a mess of.”

“Not at all, not at all,” he murmured.

“Please stay, will you?”

“Certainly.”

The Professore stood at the rear of Madame d’Ortolan’s chair.

The sheet-covered table was moved back and the young man who was employed as a blocker was sat on a chair immediately in front of Bisquitine, almost knee to knee. He looked a little nervous. He pulled the robe tighter, cleared his throat.

“She will take your wrists,” Mrs Siankung told him.

He nodded, cleared his throat again. Bisquitine looked expectantly at Mrs Siankung, who nodded. The girl made a noise like “Grooh!” and sat forward quickly, grabbing at the young man’s wrists and encircling them as best she could with her own smaller hands while she thudded her head against his chest.