There is a stillness about her that Five can't work out. Most people fidget constantly - hair-flicking, smiling and jiggling and generally breaking his train of thought. But she's not like that, not at all.

It's rare, these days, to meet anyone who can sit still, shut up and listen. A valuable quality. She's beautiful, too. Nice eyes. She reminds him of -

He quashes the memory. Not helpful. And he didn't bring his family back to this decade at great personal cost just to wonder about random girls. There's work to do, not least of which is all of them trying to act normal.

Luckily they found this bar, a basement den of misfits and loners, perfect for easing into this century without attracting too much attention. Their apartment is right upstairs in the same antique building, which is convenient. Even better, the bartender just shrugged when Five gave him the death glare and said firmly, "I am twenty-one."

Five likes to come here, partly for the alcohol, mostly to sit in semi-darkness and try to work out their next move. He's the thinker of the family. The others have their own strengths, somewhat, but Five does the cerebral heavy lifting.

And now he's lost his train of thought because some female tiptoed down the steps and sat motionless at the bar, watching the room with the patience of a statue.

He sighs. She has a device she thinks she's concealing in her lap, and she seems especially interested in his siblings. Better find out who she is.

She sits at the bar, just another customer among the bottles and the red and blue neon, and discreetly watches the scanner. What gave her the misplaced-soul signal?

It's not the fierce-looking guy in black leather. His soul is brimming with vitality and anger and is exactly the right age for his body. It's not the girl drooping beside him either ... what is it with her? Drugged. She looks sweet but she's got something going on. Her soul... the scanner flickers. Her soul is fractured, hissing and crackling with almost more energy than it can contain ...But it's her own.

This guy, then. Huge. His arms are busting out of his coat sleeves. If ever there was a case of wrong body, it's this fella.

Her heart begins to race. Could it be Brent?

The scanner bleeps and bloops, but the big guy isn't her missing friend. The giant slides his arm round the glamorous woman beside him.

Not a peep from the scanner. That girl is satisfied with life and love. Her hand rests on the big guy's thigh, oh yeah.

Sometimes other people's happiness is hard to take.

Ok. Focus. She swings the scanner around, takes in a young guy in a hoody and chinos, leaning against a pillar.

There's something up with him for sure. The scanner display twinkles and fades. She bashes it against her knee and looks again. That's weird. There's barely the tiniest signal. This guy...

He's not Brent. For a start, he's dead.

She takes a closer look at him. He seems ok. Pretty chipper, even.

The people in this bar, they're family, she realises belatedly. All of them. Adopted, presumably, because they look nothing alike. But they have the unmistakable tartness of brothers and sisters, years of contest and resentment and grudging teamwork.

She whips round to scan the last person there, a slender type with soulful eyes and a feather boa.

The scanner goes crazy. Her heart pounds. Brent. It has to be.

The body he's in is rather beautiful. Willowy. Those eyes! Surely she would know Brent, in those glorious eyes?

If it is him, she has to persuade this guy to come back to her place. That shouldn't be a problem from his obvious, glowing availability. Then she needs to get him close to the soul machine and draw out the soul from him. It will then whistle back to Brent, problem solved. The empty body will fly back to its own soul, wherever Brent found it. Looking at this guy, lying in a gutter somewhere. He's gorgeous all right, but damaged.

The crackles on her screen don't indicate a stolen soul, however. Just a soul that's spent some time ... around thousands of other souls. In fact he's with them right now.

She frowns, taps the screen. There are suddenly way too many dots for the number of bodies in the room.

Oh.

Feather boa guy communes with the dead. A lot. He's looking around the bar right now and seeing folks who aren't here. He gives acquaintances a nod, raises his glass at some two dozen more of the unseen.

Whoa. No wonder the scanner went batshit.

She rubs the bridge of her nose. She has to find Brent. First, in time to save him, and second, because she stole the machine and shouldn't even be here.

It's none of this bunch. False reading. Just her luck.

The scanner bleeps again. She looks wearily down at it.

-And there it is, a strong red dot, pulsing steadily, the sure sign of an old soul.

She peers at the crowd, the bizarre family group, but she's already ruled them out.

The scanner must be wrong. It's not Brent. It's a false indicator of a soul in a wrong body. It has to be, because aside from this peculiar bunch, there's nobody here.

She heaves a sigh. "I need a drink."

"Allow me," says a boy's voice beside her, and the scanner goes wild.