SEVEN
DIANA'S SMILE LIT UP WEMBLEY

The world is mourning Princess Diana—but nowhere are the tears falling more relentlessly than in Bosnia... She met limbless victims of the landmines... but she did much more than add another victim to her global crusade... She made a despairing people smile again.

News of the World
September 7th 1997

"THIRTY YEARS AND all these fuckers will be footnotes!" Mo stood knee-deep in rubble running his fingers over the keyboard of a Compaq he had found. The screen had beeped and razzled but had eventually given him the Net. Taking a swig from his gemini, he lit himself a reefer and flipped his way through The Sunday Times. "Do they only exist on Sundays?"

"For Sundays." Jerry was frowning down at a drop of machine oil which had fallen onto his cuff and was being absorbed into the linen. "Do they exist for Sundays or do they appear any other days?" He was still having a little trouble with existence.

"We shouldn't have left him alone in the prozac vault." Trixi Brunner brushed white powder from her perfect pants. "You only need one a day."

"I was looking for extra balance," Jerry explained. He smiled sweetly through his wrinkling flesh. "This isn't right, is it?"

Major Nye shook his head and pointed. Across the heaped bricks and slabs of broken concrete came a group of irregulars. They wore bandannas and fatigues clearly influenced by Apocalypse Now. This made them dangerous enemies and flakey friends. Virtual Nam had taken them over. Jerry sized them up. Those people always went for the flashiest ordnance. He had never seen so many customized Burberrys and pre-bloodstained Berber flak jackets.

They had stopped and in the accents of Staines and Haywards Heath were calling a familiar challenge.

"For or Against!"

They were Dianistas. But not necessarily of the same division.

Mo cupped his hands and shouted.

"For!"

Major Nye looked around vaguely, as if for a ball.

With lowered weapons, the group began to advance.

Major Nye thought he recognised one of their number.

"Mrs Persson?"

Carefully he checked his watches.

EIGHT
PRINCES TEACH CHARLES TO LOVE AGAIN

Princess Diana was named yesterday as the most inspirational figure for Britain's gay community. The Pink Paper, a gay newspaper, said a poll of its readers placed Diana way ahead of people such as 19th century playwright Oscar Wilde, who was jailed for being homosexual, or tennis star Martina Navratilova.

Daily Bulletin
26th September 1997

"YOU NEVER GET a free ride, Mr C. Sooner or later the bill turns up. As with our own blessed madonna for instance. All that unearned approval! Phew! Makes you think, eh?"

"I was his valet, you know." 'Flash' Gordon's lips formed soft, unhappy words. He was an interpreter attached to the Sloane Square squadron. His raincoat was secure to the neck and padlocked. They had found him in some provincial prison. "Up there. He was a gent through and through but not exactly an intellectual. She was twice as bright as he and she wasn't any Andrea Dworkin, either. I 'wore the bonnet' as we say in Tannochbrae. Some days you could go mad with boredom. Being a flunkey is a lot more taxing than people think. At least, it was for me."

"Weren't you afraid they'd find out about your past?" Mo noted several old acquaintances amongst the newcomers, not all of them yuppies.

"Well I was a victim too you know." Flash understood best how to comfort himself.

Una Persson, stylish as ever in her military coat and dark, divided pants, straddled the fire, warming her hands. Her pale oval face, framed by a brunette pageboy, brooded into the middle distance. "Don't buy any of that cheap American shit," she told Major Nye. "Their tanks fall apart as soon as their own crappy guns start firing. Get a French one, if you can. Here's a picture," she reached into her jacket, "from Interavia. All the specifications are there. Oh, and nothing Chinese."

"What's wrong with Chinese?" asked Jerry. He lay beside the fire staring curiously at her boot.

"Don't start that," she said firmly.

But she answered him, addressing Mo. "It's totally naff, these days. Jerry never could keep in step."

"No free lunches," said Jerry proudly, as if remembering a lesson.

"No free lunches." Una Persson unslung her MK-5O and gave the firing mechanism her intense attention. "Only what you can steal."