Her gun stops him mid weigh. Now the grocer's interested. Every detail of Agent Lemon burns the retina of his eyes. He sees a fractured mind, a shard, a fraction of the #integer, a single colour isolated in a prism of madness. Buttercup. Dandelion. She grins pale lemon

#vss365

Art chewed noisily on a stick of celery, seemingly oblivious to the #quantity of cinnamon buns protruding from her pockets. She surveyed the crime scene, the grocer's sour face adding a bitter aftertaste to her crunch lunch. "Describe your assailant?"

His mouth puckered

#vss365

"Carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, potatoes, even the oranges..." said the grocer

"You must feel a right..." said Art, taking a quick bite of a sticky bun while his back was turned

"She fired the gun, and suddenly everything became..."

" #Existential?" said Art

"Lemon!"

#vss365

"This is interesting." Art had cut open a lemon with her penknife

"What?" The grocer looked over her shoulder

"There's a word inside the lemon..."

"Broccoli," he grumbled

"No it's ' #transitive'."

"It's not a lemon, it's a broccoli," he spat

"Are you still bitter?"

#vss365

The grocer gave Art a hard stare. He looked a little jaundiced, she thought. But maybe that was the yellow shirt, amber eyes, and the 'lemon' produce

She left him the celery, hoping the thin sticks of green would counter the yellow #permutations into bittersweet hope

#vss365

"Photofit?" Said the Super, back at base

"Anyone you recognise?" She handed him the picture

"A lemon?"

"Sir! He's struck again," said Sarge in tears. "It's The Baker's"

Art's face #set stale as a loaf. She fondled the last sticky bun in her pocket. This was serious
#vss365

The Baker's yellow door was open, like a dead man's mouth. They found her inside, head in oven

Sarge hauled her out and 13 lemony doughnuts flew across the room. "Sorry! Bad #metric. Thought you were..."

"Killing myself? I hope you like sour cakes!"

Art's eyes watered

#vss365

"Are you positive?" The Super pulled out the file.

" #Negative!" Art fingered the cinnamon bun in her pocket, wondering how long she had before it went stale

"Negative?"

"I mean, I'm not positive, more neutral, but the profile fits."

"Who is this Agent Lemon?"

#vss365

"Heard of ZEBRA?"

The Super raised an eyebrow at Art.

"Not the horsey thing, but the movement." She pulled up a chair, and sat next to her boss. "I'm surprised, because I'd expect a man of your..."

Then she noticed the white flecks in his dark pupils, felt his #finity

#vss365

And for a moment, she fell into his monochrome eyes, became a #fractal of black, of white bobbing in a chequered sea where Queen mates King

"You okay?" Art saw the Super's lips soundlessly say. She bit into her cinnamon bun, the burst of sugar bringing her to her senses

#vss365

"A little early for cinnamon buns," said the Super

"Early!" Art frothed crumbs, eyes flashing sharp as sugar crystals. She almost went for his #jentacular. "I'll show you early."

"Easy, soldier! I can see the bakery job has hit you hard."

"Agent Lemon was 1 of ours!"

#vss365

Art saw through the Super's #pandiculation, he clearly knew all about Agent Lemon, but she bored him with it anyway. "We sent Agent Lemon into the Monochrome in 1989 to add a touch of zing to that black and white world. She lit up Canary Wharf, turning it canary yellow!"

#vss365

"Pretty soon she was curling every page of that world yellow, making it appear old, dated. The citizens of Forget began to remember, to hark back to a golden age. A riot of colour led to her arrest. Rumour has it she was charged with #barmecide n stuck in a cell to rot!"

#vss365