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lost cause, and that a new, untainted word or phrase must be found. They suggest 'CP sufferer' for instance, a phrase which certainly has the advantage of clearly only describing an aspect of a person, and not appearing to sum up their entire personality. On the other hand, there are those who insist that the word 'spastic' must be reclaimed. It must be wrested from the mouths of thoughtless little boys and restored to its true meaning. These people look to a day when they will be able to say 'I am a spastic' or 'my daughter is a spastic' without it sounding a bit like a gag.
    Geoffrey was of the latter faith. Ever since he had first understood the nature of his severe disability, he had laboured to escape from the social stigma that such a condition engenders. He knew he could not escape from its physical limitations but he could definitely try and stop people thinking that he was a thick, useless embarrassment.
    His method, not one that would work for everyone, had been to take the linguistic battle to the aggressor. He proclaimed himself a 'spasmo'. He had had the words 'Geoffrey Spasmo: Satan's Hell Dog' written in studs on his first leather jacket and worn it to school. Geoffrey, who always found walking quite difficult, had in his youth sometimes been pushed around in a wheelchair. To his mother's intense embarrassment he had the word 'spasmobile' beautifully inscribed on the back. He had done it in the same lettering as the famous Triumph motorbike company logo, and it looked very cool.
    It was at this time, during his wild youth, that Geoffrey had attempted to set up the first wheelchair chapter of the British Hell's Angels. The Angels, who have a highly developed outcast mentality themselves, were quite sympathetic, but Geoffrey dropped the notion when it was explained that besides kissing the arse of a dead chicken, he would be required to piss on his jeans and wear them for ever.
    Geoffrey's aggressive confrontation of other people's attitudes to his condition upset and annoyed some people. His parents had been terribly upset when he had wanted to officially change his name from Peason to Spasmo, so he hadn't done it. Other spastics, or CP sufferers, were also ambivalent about it, some considered that it played into the hands of the enemy, and Geoffrey conceded that this was possible. However, Geoffrey wasn't doing it on behalf of the whole spastic community. He was doing it for himself, to create his own style and his own identity. He was Geoffrey Spasmo. Even now, as an eminent physicist, his leather jacket still spelt it out in studs. His shades, his Sex Pistols T-shirt and torn jeans still spoke of the time in the mid-Seventies when he had emerged from his shell and begun his personal rebellion. Geoffrey's had been the only wheelchair to make it to the front of a gig on the Clash's White Riot Tour in '77. His dad had to hose it down to get all the gob off afterwards.

Chapter Three
MAN ON THE RUN
THIEF
    In another part of London Sam Turk sat alone in his office. Sam had no physical disabilities, unless you counted a copious beer gut, but he did have a seriously retarded soul. It was this moral deficiency that had led him to unleash the killers on Geoffrey.
    Sam was not naturally a killer, it was circumstance which had made him deadly. Circumstance in the form of a great sheaf of diagrams and computer printouts which lay before him in his office. The diagrams were complex, and Sam was a good enough engineer to realize that to fully understand their subtle intricacies would take months, perhaps years. However, even a superficial perusal had been enough to convince Sam that what lay before him was a revolution, a revolution that would change the world.
    Sam's mind reeled at the almost limitless potential of what had fallen into his possession. Limitless is a word that comes more easily to a copywriter than an engineer, but Sam knew that on this occasion it was apt. Fame, power and wealth without boundary of